Canning staff have recommended the city pull out of a street lighting project that was set to swap traditional street lighting with LED lighting.
The recommendation, if supported by council, could have serious ramifications for the four other local government organisations involved in the project.
In October 2021, the city signed up with four other local governments – Melville, Cockburn, Armadale and Albany – to participate in a project that would fun the replacement of Western Power’s street lighting with “Smart Enabled” LED lights.
The “Super Trial’ program would replace 47,000 lamps and luminaires of the 275,000 streetlights across the Western Power-controlled South West Interconnected System (SWIS) grid with Smart Enabled LED technology.
The city has approximately 8,889 street lights owned by Western Power, accounting for 40 per cent – over $1.6 million per annum – of the city’s total energy spend.
Smart LED lighting enables each light to be metered separately to enable performance management at the individual light level, as well as the accurate recording of light efficiency measures and energy use.
Additionally, smart monitors can be utilised to measure air pollution, soil moisture, noise levels, traffic movements and parking capacity.
However, there are two main sticking points for the city, with Canning infrastructure and environment director Warren Bow noting that the head contract covering the broader project has yet to be presented to the consortium.
“In effect the city is being asked to endorse the…agreement to purchase the Smart Controls, without visibility of the overall contract which would govern the bulk LED conversion of Western Power streetlights,” he stated in the report.
“Since October 2021, there has been a significant increase in the interest rate for its borrowings,
from 1.95 per cent to ~5.00 per cent.
“This impacts the feasibility of the initially presented project from the consortium.
“Western Power changes since October 2021 that impact the city’s position on this project include the new Targeted Underground Power Program (TUPP) Project, in combination with the set pricing offered to Local Governments for the bulk replacement of old street lighting globes to LED luminaires.
“With an installation cost of $200 per street light for the Smart Controls, the reduction in initial project cost ($5.8 million) is $1.6 million with further reduction for the yearly access charge of $164,447.
“Whilst Smart Controls do offer potential future ‘Smart City’ opportunities, there is limited capability and insufficient financial benefit to install Smart Controls at this time for the City of Canning.”
As a result, officers have recommended council advise the consortium and Western Power that it will not be party to the project, nor continue as a participant in the “Super Trial”.
The impact of this potential decision on the future of the local government consortium, set to be made at the council meeting on December 13, is as yet unknown.
