Northland Utilities and the city of Yellowknife have paired up to replace streetlight bulbs in the city with light-emitting diode (LED) lights. - NNSL file photo

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The streetlights of Yellowknife are getting greener thanks to a joint project by Northland Utilities and the city.

The goal is to replace high-pressure sodium bulbs with light-emitting diode (LED) lights. So far, 441 have been replaced, with the planned total of more than 1,500 replaced lights by 2016.

Carl Bird, the city's director of corporate services, said switching to LED lights will conserve enough energy to power more than 100 homes for a whole year and will save the city more than 975,000 kilowatt-hours in electricity per year.

"This project is something that we wanted to do together and we're going to do it over a four-year period so we can carry the costs and the benefits," said Dwayne Morgan, spokesperson for Northland Utilities.

"I think it's an important project for any city to have a look at."

Along with replacing the old lights, any new streetlights in the future will be installed with LED fixtures, according to Bird.

Project part of larger plan

The project is part of the city's Community Energy Plan which was implemented in 2008. The installation of pellet boilers to heat the Ruth Inch Memorial Pool, the Yellowknife Community arena and other city facilities, as well as a retrofit in the lighting at the arena and Fieldhouse, are elements of the plan.

By switching to pellet boilers and reducing reliance on fossil fuels, the city was able to announce in February that it had saved its millionth litre of oil.

"We have initiated several projects over the past eight years under our Community Energy Plan which have led to significant reductions in (greenhouse gas) emissions and reduced energy costs to the city," Bird told Yellowknifer in March.

Northland Utilities is also championing energy efficiency, having recently completed two significant projects to help reduce cost and emissions.

"In 2010, we completed an eight-year upgrade of our entire electrical system -- a project called the 25KV Conversion," said Morgan.

"What it did was move the voltage up from 5,000 volts to 25,000 vols and what this does is create a level of efficiencies, enhance the safety and reliability of the system and help with the losses. We don't have as much line losses as before -- we actually cut them in half."

Switching to the 25,000 volt system brought Yellowknife into the modern world, as the old system was mostly popular in the 1940s and 1950s.

"It was a very good upgrade for the city of Yellowknife," Morgan said. "It allows us to expand the city, and the city (officials) liked that because it allows for future expansion. It was a good project all around and (the LED streetlight project) fell into that piece."

The second project the company did was to modernize all of its meters to an automatic meter reading system which helped improve accuracy.

"We now have an accuracy rate of 99.8 per cent of all the meters being read, with no more manual reads, so no more estimating," said Morgan.