FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 16, 2021
CONTACT INFO. :
Office of the Mayor
Patricia Resende
(401) 529-3207
City shines light on savings with RISE Engineering streetlight conversion
EAST PROVIDENCE, RI — The City of East Providence will be converting its 5,200 streetlights to LED lights, resulting in annual savings to taxpayers.
Under the Municipal Streetlight Investment Act, municipalities are allowed to purchase and maintain streetlights. The City worked with National Grid and its consultant RPM, LLC to develop requests for proposals from qualified contractors for the streetlight conversion. After reviewing proposals, the city selected Cranston-based RISE Engineering to replace existing street lights with new, energy-efficient LED lights, which are less expensive to operate.
“The future shines bright for the city of East Providence,” Mayor Bob DaSilva said. “Reaching this agreement has been a priority of my administration since taking office – it not only provides savings to our residents, it enable us to reverse the red-capping of streetlights throughout the City and turn on the inactive lights.”
The conversion to LED street lights provides many benefits including:
- Increased public safety
- Lower energy costs
- Lower maintenance costs (LEDs last three to four times longer than that of incumbent technology)
- Better illumination of roads
- Increased visibility
- Decrease in overall light pollution
The program, once complete, will provide the city’s taxpayers approximately $501,612 in annual savings. In addition, East Providence’s LED project will receive generous National Grid and Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources incentives.
In addition to the new streetlights, the City will also install smart streetlight controls, which will enable remote management, scheduling and dimming of the new lights, which will ultimately lead to additional energy savings.
The City has also reached an agreement on the purchase of street lights from National Grid (The Narragansett Electric Company) in the amount of $285,956.77. The agreement comes after the Rhode Island Dept. of Transportation reached an agreement to, once the conversion of the streetlights is complete, take overpayment and maintenance of the streetlights on state roads in East Providence.
The agreement between the City of East Providence and National Grid include the following:
- Late charges in the amount of $62,205 will be waived
- A total of $458,479 in outstanding arrearage that the city was holding back to be paid to TNEC (held in escrow). The City held the funds in escrow because it amounted to the portion of the electric bill for streetlights on state roads in East Providence.
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