Molybdenum News Center

OG&E installing LED lights in Fort Smith

A new pilot program from Oklahoma Gas and Electric (OG&E) could make the drive along Phoenix Avenue near the airport a little brighter, even in the dead of night.

Crews from the Oklahoma City-based utility spent Tuesday replacing 28 lighting fixtures along Phoenix with LED lighting at no cost to the city.

According to Rob Ratley, a Fort Smith-based community affairs manager for OG&E, the company approached the city of Fort Smith about doing the pilot.

"We approached them and we're also making (an) application with the Arkansas Public Service Commission to expand this type of lighting throughout the system," he said.

Currently, OG&E services 40 different communities out of its Fort Smith office in four Arkansas counties as well as LeFlore and Sequoyah Counties in Oklahoma.

By replacing older, aging lighting fixtures along Phoenix, Ratley said taxpayers should see savings on the city's utility bill.

“We do expect the cost savings to be significant. And the other savings are in the area of maintenance. These fixtures require a lot less maintenance and have better lighting."

On the standard lighting fixtures, Ratley said maintenance was being done every one to two years.

By replacing the lights with new LED technology, he said the maintenance costs would decrease significantly while the lifespan of the lights would increase significantly.

"On conventional fixtures, you currently have photocells, you have lamps and ballasts. These new fixtures are a self-contained unit, so when one of those go out, we replace the entire unit," he said. "The expected life is quite a bit longer, we're hoping for five to 10 years from each fixture."

The amount of light given off by a single LED light should improve greatly, according to Ratley.

"We feel like it's a better lighting spectrum and that's one reason why we're doing this project is to allow the public to see the difference between the two and that's another reason why we chose this corridor, so they will b able to drive along this roadway, experience the LED lighting and then go a little further and compare it to the high pressure sodium lighting that exists on down the road."

Glenn Gottschalk, lighting project manager for OG&E, said energy savings would be significant, as well. He said existing lights run on about 400 watts of electricity.

"These particular lights, the new LEDs, are only 206 watts, so we're going to be using about half, almost half, of the electricity to turn these lights on as what we've (been using with the) existing (lights)." (Excerpt from The City Wire)


Molybdenum for Sapphire Growth Furnace Manufacturer & Supplier: Chinatungsten Online - http://www.molybdenum.com.cn
Tel.: 86 592 5129696; Fax: 86 592 5129797
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Tungsten Picture Center: http://picture.chinatungsten.com
Tungsten Video Center: http://v.chinatungsten.com
Tungsten News & Tungsten Prices, 3G Version: http://3g.chinatungsten.com

• < Prev
• Next >