PSC Approves Street Lighting Sale to Four Municipalities

NYPA is Partnering with Albany to Install more than 10,800 LED Streetlights Throughout the City

Smart Street Lighting NY Calls for at least 500,000 Street Lights to Be Converted to Energy-Saving LED Technology by 2025

ALBANY — The New York State Public Service Commission (Commission) and the New York Power Authority (NYPA) today announced significant milestones in Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s Smart Street Lighting NY program. The PSC, as part of its continuing work to reduce municipal energy consumption across the state, approved separate requests to sell utility-owned streetlights to four upstate municipalities. With the change in ownership, the municipalities—the cities of Albany, Canandaigua, Cortland and the Village of Newark—can now install their own state-of-the-art energy efficient lights to improve safety, lower costs to taxpayers and protect the environment.

NYPA is partnering with the City of Albany to replace all of its streetlights with SMART, energy-efficient LED fixtures, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by more than 2,850 metric tons a year—the equivalent of taking more than 600 cars off the road—and saving the city more than $3.3 million annually in energy and maintenance costs. In addition to financing and implementing the street lighting replacement project, NYPA is also providing Albany with $850,000 in funding support for the more than $20 million lighting upgrade to the city’s 10,800 streetlights.

Smart Street Lighting NY, announced by the Governor in his 2018 State of the State address, is a statewide program that calls for at least 500,000 streetlights throughout the state to be replaced by energy-efficient LED technology by 2025. The program advances Governor Cuomo’s Green New Deal, a nation-leading clean energy and jobs agenda that will aggressively put New York State on a path to economy-wide carbon neutrality.

“Governor Cuomo has long-been a powerful champion on the need for local government efficiency and control,” said Commission Chair John B. Rhodes. “As part of that important work, the Commission encourages municipalities to install energy-efficient street lighting. With each installation, taxpayers directly benefit by lowering municipal expenditures and reducing energy costs. Energy efficient streetlights also advance the State’s clean energy goals by lowering overall emissions the importance of which is highlighted as we look to celebrate Earth Day next week.”

“Helping our customers bring their streetlights into the future further advances NYPA's reputation as a first-mover in the energy-sector,” said Gil C. Quiniones, NYPA president and CEO.” Albany's new state-of-the-art SMART street lighting system will save energy, reduce maintenance and optimize city operations.”

“This comprehensive city-wide streetlight purchase and subsequent LED conversion will significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions and ultimately save Albany taxpayers more than $3 million annually,” said Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan. “It will also greatly enhance our ability to brighten corridors across the City and eliminate environmental factors that criminals exploit. I sincerely thank Governor Cuomo for his continued partnership that has been critical to making this innovative project possible, and NYPA for their financial and operational assistance.”

In addition to the City of Albany, the City of Cortland (Cortland County) will purchase 1,445 streetlights and associated facilities from National Grid, the City of Canandaigua (Ontario County) will purchase 1,130 street lights and associated facilities from Rochester Gas and Electric, and the Village of Newark (Wayne County) will purchase 1,274 street lights and associated facilities from New York State Electric and Gas.

Approximately a million municipal streetlights across the state can potentially adopt a strategic street-lighting strategy upon Commission approval. This number includes both utility- and customer-owned streetlights. In its decisions today, the Commission approved four municipal streetlight sales that may lead to the conversion of more than 14,000 fixtures to more efficient lighting. For an average municipality, streetlights may account for up to 40 percent of total local government electric energy consumption. Pursuing conversions allows local governments to lower municipal energy expenditures while also advancing the State’s efforts to lead on climate change by lowering overall emissions.

NYPA is working with cities, towns, villages and counties throughout New York to fully manage and implement a customer’s transition to LED streetlight technology. NYPA provides upfront financing for the project, with payments to NYPA made in the years following from the cost-savings created by the reduced energy use of the LED streetlights. NYPA has installed—or is in the process of installing—more than 117,500 LED streetlights at municipalities across the state. To learn more about the Smart Street Lighting NY program, visit the program webpage on NYPA’s website.

To date, the Commission has approved the sale of nearly 45,000 street lights to 18 municipalities across New York State.

Today’s decisions may be obtained by going to the Commission Documents section of the Commission’s Web site at www.dps.ny.gov and entering Case Numbers 18-E-0737; 18-E-0668; 18-E-0707; 18-E-0783 in the input box labeled "Search for Case/Matter Number". Many libraries offer free Internet access.

Commission documents may also be obtained from the Commission’s Files Office, 14th floor, Three Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12223 (518-474-2500). If you have difficulty understanding English, please call us at 1-800-342-3377 for free language assistance services regarding this press release.

New York State’s Green New Deal

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s Green New Deal, the nation’s leading clean energy and jobs agenda, will aggressively put New York State on a path to economy-wide carb on neutrality. This initiative will provide for a just transition to clean energy, spurring the growth of the green economy and mandating New York's power be 100 percent clean and carbon-free by 2040, one of the most aggressive goals in the U.S. The cornerstone of this newly proposed mandate is a significant increase of New York's successful Clean Energy Standard to 70 percent renewable electricity by 2030. As part of the unprecedented ramp-up of renewable energy, New York has already invested $2.9 billion into 46 large-scale renewable projects across the state as it significantly increases its clean energy targets, such as: quadrupling New York's offshore wind target to a nation-leading 9,000 megawatts by 2035; doubling distributed solar deployment to 6,000 megawatts by 2025; and deploying 3,000 megawatts of energy storage by 2030. To support this ambitious work, NY Green Bank intends to use its expertise in overcoming financing gaps to foster greater environmental impacts per public dollar by raising over $1 billion in third party funds to expand climate financing availability across New York and the rest of North America.

Reforming the Energy Vision

The Green New Deal builds on Governor Andrew M. Cuomo's landmark Reforming the Energy Vision strategy to lead on climate change and grow New York's economy. REV is building a cleaner, more resilient and affordable energy system for all New Yorkers by stimulating investment in clean technologies like solar, wind, and energy efficiency. Already, REV has driven growth of nearly 1,500 percent in the statewide solar market, improved energy affordability for 1.65 million low-income customers, and has led to more than 150,000 jobs in manufacturing, engineering, and other clean tech sectors across New York State.

To learn more about the Green New Deal and REV, visit rev.ny.gov, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.