Since early 2009, Los Angeles has installed 147,704 Dark Sky Association-approved LED street lights. That created a 63.3 percent reduction in street lighting energy use and $7.7 million in annual savings.
During that time, NorthWestern Energy fought petitions to the Montana Public Service Commission seeking energy-use reductions. Our current petition provides a way to pay for the LED retrofit while also cutting taxes and energy rates.
We ask the PSC to eliminate an “ownership” overcharge. It is costing Montanans more than $2.1 million a year. We also seek a refund of approximately $25 million in past overcharges. That’s more than enough money to implement energy-efficient LED technology.
NorthWestern Energy moved to strike much written, under-oath testimony that we’ve pre-filed in the case. Some is by Seattle City Light’s Edward Smalley, former director of the Department of Energy’s Municipal Solid-State Street Lighting Consortium.
He testified that to purchase 2,000 LED streetlights in 2009, Seattle spent $369 per luminaire. Today a better performing unit costs around $150 when replacing luminaires in residential areas.
NWE also moved to strike part of petitioner Leo Barsanti’s testimony. Barsanti calculated that between May 30, 2010, and Sept. 8, 2013, NorthWestern will have overcharged taxpayers $28,352 in his Billings Street Improvement Lighting & Maintenance District (SILMD #228).
That is $977 per light for each of the 29 lights in his SILMD. It’s way more than the cost to re-lamp with LEDs. Should NWE be allowed to prevent us all from knowing that?
As of Jan. 1, 2014, Seattle City Light had saved its street lighting customers $2.6 million per year in energy and maintenance costs by converting to LED lighting. Smalley anticipates yearly savings will approach $4-5 million once all 86,000 Seattle cobrahead, decorative and higher wattage arterial roadway and bridge lights are converted to LED.
Then, all municipal electricity use will have been reduced by 24 percent. Good to know, since Smalley also notes that in many towns, payment for energy to light streets consumes 37 to 50 percent, or even more, of the municipal budget.
Seattle City Light estimated energy and maintenance savings will pay for the replacements in 7.6 years. It’s shorter than the 10-year warranty Seattle’s bid document requires.
Our case eliminates or shortens most payback periods because the original cost of LEDs is defrayed by recouping past overcharges. If we can eliminate the present overcharge and apply past, refunded overcharges to save energy, property owners in roughly 80 percent of the SILMDs with NorthWestern-owned street lights will see a reduction of approximately $70 to $120 a year per household in their individual property tax bills.
If your street lights are more than 15 years old, you are probably among the 80 percent to benefit most if our petition is granted. The SILMD line on your property taxes should go down by 80 to 88 percent — more if solar street lights are installed, eliminating the energy charge component of the bill entirely.
For the other 20 percent of SILMDs with utility-owned street lighting, it will mean elimination of future overcharges. It also will eliminate part of what Montana local governments pay when government property is located in a SILMD experiencing an overcharge. That in turn will reduce the burden on all taxpayers regardless of whether they live in a SILMD.
After the cost of the new LED luminaires and other case expenses are covered from the refunded overcharge, we suggest that money remaining be rebated to consumers.
Monopolies should not be permitted to force customers to pay more than necessary because the monopolies provide no alternative to energy-hog lights. So we’ve also asked the PSC to require NWE to start replacing 800 outmoded lights a month with LEDs.
If NWE refuses, the energy component of NWE’s street lighting tariff should be cut by 50 percent. That will give consumers the energy rate they would otherwise be paying if LEDs had been installed.
If you support us, please sign the online petition at http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/pay-for-energy-efficient.
And, please ask 10 friends to sign, too. Your petition will be presented to the PSC during the public comment portion of the case. Thank you.
Russ Doty, of Greeley, Colo., is the attorney for consumers in PSC Docket #D2010.2.14.
