Villages holds off on LED lights

The Belgium Village Board took the recommendation of the Public Works Committee and will wait to upgrade the village’s streetlights to LED.

The board last week unanimously agreed to do nothing with a We Energies’ proposal to switch its 194 lights.

At a Public Works Committee meeting July 30, We Energies lighting consultant Andrea Hatton said in five years the village’s high-pressure sodium lights may not be available and she proposed upgrading to LED lights.

The switch, however, was seen as too expensive when comparing up-front costs to the energy savings, the committee determined.

Instead of replacing the lights in large chunks, committee member Josh Borden asked if We Energies would replace the HPS lights with LED ones as they go bad.

“We can’t afford to pay for all those fixtures. That’s just not going to happen,” Hatton said, adding it would change the village’s rates. “That’s not how the program’s laid out.”

The committee recommended waiting to switch the lights as their cost may decrease in the future.