SANATOGA PA – It could get a little darker along Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township streets and highways in coming months, if the township Board of Commissioners turns off selected street lights as one of several ways to cut electricity costs that are predicted to rise by 20 percent or more in 2011.
Energy hog?
There is no immediate plan to flip the switch on any of the 109 street lights standing within Lower Pottsgrove’s borders. There hasn’t even been a study yet to determine if such a proposal is practical or feasible. But with energy utility deregulation coming to Pennsylvania next year, the township is among many municipalities looking to save where it can on electric bills.
Commissioners appointed a committee Thursday (Jan. 21, 2010), during their second meeting this month in the municipal building, 2199 Buchert Rd., Pottstown PA, to explore reducing energy usage.
Under its current budget, the township expects to spend about $15,000 this year on electric and water bills at the municipal building alone. It spends substantially more paying for power that feeds street lights, traffic lights, parks and recreation facilities, and other users. A portion of the latter is recovered in township-collected lighting fees.
The problem facing Lower Pottsgrove, and all other energy consumers in Pennsylvania, is the looming expiration of artificial caps on what utility companies can charge for electricity. Limits were imposed by the state Legislature in 1996 as a way help control costs and encourage utility company competition. At the time, electricity rates in the state were running about 15 percent higher than the national average.
Those caps will be lifted in 2011, 15 years after they took effect, unless the Legislature moves to extend them. Utility companies like Philadelphia Electric, First Energy, Pennsylvania Power and Light, and others in the Commonwealth all have warned consumers – beginning last year – that substantial rate hikes could be expected once the caps disappeared.
“We’ve got to start now to save energy and dollars,” township Manager Rodney Hawthorne told commissioners.
He estimates that by eliminating at least one street light in locations served by two, primarily along East High Street, and by also cutting some lights in rural areas where they are considered safely expendable, the township may be able douse as many as 30 lights. It also is talking with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation about swapping seven traffic lights from high-usage models to more energy-efficient light-emitting diode (LED) devices.
A proposal raised late last year by former Commissioner Stephen Klotz, to explore converting some street lights to solar power, has a high up-front cost, Hawthorne said: about $6,500 per light. Although that expense might be recovered over time by energy savings, it isn’t money the township can afford to spend now, Hawthorne noted.
The energy committee, the board agreed, will consist of commissioners’ President Jonathan Spadt, commissioners and budget committee members James Phillips and James Kaiser, Hawthorne, and Police Chief Michael Shade.
Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ Jan. 21 meeting):
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This could be a big mistake depending on where the lights will be designated for shut off. There was a huge graffiti problem in Sanatoga not too long ago. The entire back of the Thriftway and parts of KMart were a huge mess from graffiti being painted across the buildings as well as the strip mall adjacent to the stores. And that was when there were lights that should have exposed the delinquents that did all the damage. What is going to happen in the dark???????? Do these committee members live in the township or elsewhere not affected by this decision?
I suggest that the air conditioning in the township building be turned off so that the folks there really understand…
Sure turn off street light and encourage violence, delinquency. Turn off street lights and allow accidents at dark street corners and turns.
Why not buy a few solar powered lights to start and increase them over time. Simply saying something’s too expensive doesn’t inhibit our school board from buying expensive buildings. How about turning off the lights up at the middle school after a certain hour so the denizens can work in private? Have the police patrol the grounds as part of their rounds.
Have we looked at the pumps in the water/sewer system to see if replacing them can lower electricity costs?
Put lights on timers, use motion activated lights, be smart about this but don’t compromise the township’s security and drivers’ safety.
Joe,
For the record, Lower Pottstgrove Township only spends $4700.00 a year on the street lights. Certain other township residents are responsible for the rest, which amounts to $19,700.00.