City of E.L. receives LED light grant

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The city of East Lansing will be just as bright when it installs new LED street lights it received from a state grant, and it will help the MSU community go greener, too.

East Lansing received a $115,000 Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant from the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth to install LED lighting mostly in the area north of Ann Street and bounded by Bailey Street on the west and Gunson Street on the east in the Bailey Neighborhood.

The Lansing Board of Water and Light, or LBWL, helped survey the proposed project site. Calls to the LBWL were not returned Thursday.

Councilmember Roger Peters said the size of the grant allowed the city to target the Bailey Neighborhood, which is one of the city’s oldest and suffers from an aging infrastructure marked by inefficient incandescent light bulbs.

The city will match up to 10 percent of the grant’s total, but East Lansing Community Development Analyst Tim Schmitt said he doesn’t believe the city will put forth the entire $11,500.

Suchitra Webster, chairwoman for the Bailey Neighborhood, said the mix of students and permanent residents makes the area a sensible target for such a project.

“I think it’s very exciting that in a time like this with all these budgetary constraints and fiscal problems that the city is willing to get grants and pay attention to the neighborhoods,” she said. “Bailey has always been very conscious of environmental issues, so that makes this the perfect place.”

The project is one of the first of its kind in a residential zone, as most LED conversion has occurred in downtown areas, Schmitt said. As a demonstration project, the city is required to promote the advantages of LED lighting through education, Peters said.

Councilmember Nathan Triplett said East Lansing can be the
standard bearer for other cities with this progressive technology.

“We’re really pioneers in this area and we hope we can be an example for other Michigan communities,” he said.

Schmitt said the initiative will save the city about $3,000 per year, which will go back into the general fund as the city grapples with an unforgiving bottom line. He added the city will explore LED lighting in other neighborhoods once the price for the relatively new technology levels, since street lighting is the second greatest energy consumer in the city.

The federal stimulus package has made money available for cash-strapped communities, and East Lansing has been proactive in obtaining these funds, Triplett said.

“Especially in difficult budget times like we have now we have to be able to explore every option,” he said. “The city pursues (grants) aggressively because it gives us another avenue to pursue policy objectives in these tight budget times.”

The city must first wait to be officially awarded the grant money before it can install the new lights, but Schmitt said he expects the upgrades to occur in the next two months.

“Most of the other applications have been commercial oriented, like downtown,” he said. “But this is the first residential one and we think it’s is going to be wildly successful.”

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