OG&E officials resist using LED streetlights downtown
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Published: November 8, 2009
Officials with Oklahoma Gas & Electric helped introduce Oklahoma City to LED lighting a couple of years ago with the installation of LED lights along the Oklahoma River and as replacement Christmas lights at the Myriad Gardens.
But the utility is also reluctant to see LED streetlights introduced downtown. Tim Hartley, spokesman for OG&E, estimates the cost of an LED light at $2,000 per fixture compared with $200 for the fixtures used today. "The technology in play here with LED lights is not proven and doesn’t have a track record with streetlight use,” Hartley said. "It’s a quickly changing technology. We may be close to where we might be willing to look at it in the future, but we’re not there yet,” he said. Typically, streetlights are owned by OG&E and leased to the city, which also pays for power and maintenance. Plans call for the new streetlights to be bought by the city, using the TIF dollars, with the city still paying for any power and maintenance. Currently, the city is using kilowatt hours valued at $4.2 million a year which is then applied against franchise fees owed by the utility.
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