City of Calgary announces new service provider for street light maintenance services

The City of Calgary is announcing a change to our service provider for street light maintenance services. The hope is that our new provider will be able to provide The City with improved repair response times by mid-2023. Street light maintenance services include assessment and simple repairs of reported outages for Calgary's 104,000 luminaires.

As of Dec. 1, 2022, Iconic Power Systems will be the sole provider of The City's street light maintenance services. Iconic Power has been working with Enmax to transition these maintenance services since the beginning of November 2022. As the service transitions and Iconic begins their streetlight contract citizens can expect to see an improvement of streetlight maintenance response times by mid-2023.

"As with many things the pandemic has had an effect on our ability to perform repairs to our streetlights, which resulted in a slight increase in response times to street light outages in 2022," explains Ravi Seera, Manager of Mobility Operations. "Thankfully our supply issues have been resolved, and we believe the change in service provider will reduce the response time by the middle of 2023."

Citizens are encouraged to report their streetlight outages by visiting Calgary.ca/streetlights.

When citizens visit Calgary.ca/streetlights, they have options to report light outages or damaged lights. Using the Street Light Outage Map, you have the option to use a City of Calgary myID account to receive updates on their street light request. The Street Light Outage Map allows streetlight outages to be reported accurately and quickly as service requests are automatically generated and sent to our service provider.

We notice an increase in reporting during our busier seasons, which are generally the winter months when street lights are operating for longer periods of time due to the decreased daylight hours. Those who are unable to access the map can still call 311 to create a service request and have a City employee update the map on their behalf.

The City of Calgary has recognized major savings for our citizens with the installation of LED streetlights five years ago.

Between 2014 and 2017, approximately 84,000 streetlights were upgraded to Light Emitting Diode (or LED) luminaires, the largest such LED retrofit in Canada at the time. The project was seen as an opportunity to realize large cost savings but also reduce the carbon footprint of street lights. This upgrade improved safety and has had a positive impact on our energy consumption in the face of rising costs.

"Five years after the retrofit was completed, The City has confirmed that approximately $5 million is being saved annually as a result of the LED street light retrofit," said Seera. "This cost savings is expected to continue over the next five years, and payback for the project is expected to occur between 5.5 and 9.5 years after the project was completed."

Street lighting accounts for approximately 12 per cent of all electricity consumption at The City of Calgary, and the LED has helped Calgary realize almost 40 million fewer Kilowatt hours used per year since they have been installed.

While the LED installation has reduced consumption of energy by up to 50 per cent, maintenance costs have also been reduced by about 25 per cent since the retrofit was completed. As technologies have changed, LED streetlight are also now cheaper to purchase than the outdated HPS (high-pressure sodium) lights that Calgary used to use. Other municipalities around Canada have also taken notice and done significant work to retrofit their old lights to LED luminaries.

"The City of Calgary constructed its first street light in 1887, and has been installing new lights ever since," Seera said. "These important pieces of infrastructure help light up our streets and improve safety, especially during the winter months when daylight is in short supply."