Thousands of Salt Lake City street lights are being converted to be more energy efficient and “dark sky friendly.”
David Pearson, street lighting manager for Salt Lake City Public Utilities, says that sky glow coming from big cities such as SLC is a big contributor toward the decreasing of the night sky. Pearson says that moving forward, dark sky friendly lights with top shields on them will be installed throughout the city to fix this issue.
Salt Lake City Public Utilities currently maintains over 16,000 lights in several neighborhoods across the city and for several years now, the city has been converting these street lights for energy saving purposes, replacing the bulbs with LED bulbs. The conversion to LED alone reduced the city’s monthly power bill from $90,000 to $40,000 and following constructive feedback from homeowners, other additions have been added to these lights including shielding.
Laura Briefer, Salt Lake City Public Utilities director, says that the conversion wasn’t just better for the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, but it was saving costs to the public. Pearson also says that the switch is also impacting public safety due to more light being shed on sidewalks and roadways.
It’s estimated that converting all the city’s street lights could take about five years. Briefer says that she’d like to see the effort expand into the city’s Northwest Quadrant and would also like to see private homes, commercial, and industrial businesses look into improving their own lighting to become more dark sky friendly.
