Waterford Council set to complete public lighting upgrade this summer
Crews at work
Waterford City and County Council are set to replace 10,000 public lights with LEDs by August.
Waterford is one of 21 Local Authorities taking part in the National Public Lighting Energy Efficiency Project (PLEEP).
Fergus Gleeson, Director of Services, Waterford City and County Council said the programme will significantly contribute to meeting Waterford City and County Council's climate action goals.
"Waterford has set out an extremely ambitious strategy in its Climate Action Plan, and this project aligns closely with the goal of establishing Waterford as a decarbonisation zone (DZ) by 2040," said Mr Gleeson.
"The implementation of PLEEP copper fastens our commitment to reducing energy consumption and associated CO2 emissions. The project will also reduce the incidences of lighting outage when complete and reduce excess lighting with over-designed installations," he added.
"With advances in LED technology, the improved public lighting will add to enhanced public safety and an improved visual environment over traditional public lighting."
The project is expected to deliver energy savings of 50 per cent and 786 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.
In the Southern region, 77,000 public lights will be retrofitted to LED.
Waterford City and County Council say they are working with the lead local authority, Cork County Council, along with partner local authorities in Clare, Kerry and Limerick.
The primary objective of the project is to maximise energy savings, reduce CO2 emissions and enhance efficiency across the public lighting network by replacing the traditional light fittings with LED luminaires.
Funding for the retrofitting of the LED lighting in Waterford is through the Department of Environment's Climate Action Fund and Waterford City and County Council.
The process of retrofitting 10,000 public lights across Waterford city and county began in August last year and is anticipated to be substantially completed by August this year.
PLEEP will also collect data on the condition of the public lighting infrastructure.
This will help the region's local authorities plan and invest in the upgrading of the public lighting underground infrastructure.
Deregulation within the electrical industry in 2009 resulted in local authorities taking over ownership from ESB Networks of underground cabling infrastructure servicing public lighting columns.
This included concentric cables which had been installed since the 1950s.
These cables represent around 15 per cent of Waterford City and County Council's public lighting inventory. Concentric cabling doesn’t comply with current electrical standards and where cable faults occur, the cabling must be replaced in full.
As this cabling is at the end of its service life it is prone to faults.
While Waterford City and County Council say they will make every effort to ensure a timely repair is carried out, the time required to restore these cable faults can be considerable given the necessity to provide new ducts and cables and excavate pavement and footpaths.
The work is site-specific, and timelines for repair can be more than three months because the work is dependent on the availability of funding and a specialised contractor.
Technical human resources in the private sector are constrained at this moment in time.
In the short term, to ensure public lights are repaired as faults occur, Waterford City and County Council say they will continue to maintain all public lighting and endeavour to keep the incidents of non-functional lights below two percent at any given time.
Public lighting faults can be logged on the Deadsure app or via Waterford City and County Council's website.
