President Barack Obama announced Friday that Little Rock is one of five cities chosen to participate in an accelerator program that offers federal assistance to cities committing to energy savings by upgrading outdoor lighting.
The program was part of more than 300 commitments to cut carbon pollution by advancing the deployment of solar power and energy efficiency announced by the president. He also listed a series of new executive actions that he said will lead to $2 billion in energy efficiency investments, better buildings and smarter appliances across the nation.
The commitments by both public and private sector organizations are said to represent investments that will lower energy costs for more than 1 billion square feet of buildings, including thousands of homes and several city blocks, across the nation over the next several years.
In Little Rock, the lighting upgrades are part of an effort to reduce energy bills. What is dubbed as the High Performance Outdoor Lighting Accelerator is a U.S. Department of Energy program that has a goal of replacing more than 500,000 outdoor lighting poles with high efficiency versions over the next two years in Little Rock; Detroit; the Kansas City, Mo., metro area; West Palm Beach, Fla.; and Huntington Beach, Calif.
The accelerator program will test the best practices when implementing system-wide lighting upgrades in a city.
Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola signed a commitment agreement Wednesday to work toward a 20 percent target savings in energy costs citywide. The Energy Department isn't committing a set amount of federal money to aid program participants but has agreed to provide technical expertise to cities that need to overcome barriers in the way of implementing high efficiency outdoor lighting.
The department also will help establish policy dealing with tariff fees that will allow more local governments to take advantage of high efficiency outdoor lighting.
Stodola is interested in exchanging the city's 24,000 sodium streetlights with LED lights that use less energy and require less maintenance, he said.
"I think our city has been strong on these sustainability and energy conservation issues. I want the city of Little Rock to be a leader, and I think by being selected here, it shows that we are really progressive and serious about saving money and about energy conservation," Stodola said.
Efforts will begin immediately with a goal of implementing changes by the end of the accelerator program in spring 2016, the mayor said. The main question to be researched is how the city will afford the capital cost of retrofitting its outdoor lighting. The Energy Department will help with the exchange of financing ideas between the participating cities, an agreement document said.
Stodola said a partnership with Entergy Arkansas Inc. will be needed to upgrade the 24,000 lights across Little Rock for which the city pays set tariffs to the company. An additional 1,000 or more outdoor lights are in the city's control that it pays a utility bill for, Stodola said.
The Little Rock Advertising and Promotion Commission has already begun looking into the possibility of retrofitting outdoor lighting to LED lights at parking garages, baseball fields, parks, and the Robinson and State House Convention centers.
It costs about $880 per month to operate the LED lights on the three downtown bridges every night of the week, which is "pretty cheap," Stodola said.
"Certainly the science is there to try and have us work toward some common objectives, which would reduce our energy cost to be more consistent with lighting our city and keeping it lit," he said.
"A safe city is a lit city," Stodola added, noting that he's driven pass numerous streetlights that were burnt out. The goal is always to get those fixed as soon as possible, but the reality is that they sometimes stay unlit, he said.
"LEDs have the benefit of tremendously reduced maintenance. That's labor expense, equipment expense and a material expense savings above the utility cost," he said. "LED conversions are something we should all strive for."
He didn't know offhand Friday the annual amount that the city pays for streetlights but said: "With 24,000 streetlights, you can imagine the city pays a very big bill."
Michele Halsell, director of the Applied Sustainability Center at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, said Little Rock's participation in the federal accelerator lines up perfectly with a 2015 American Counsel for an Energy Efficient Economy conference to take place in the city.
"The ACEEE rarely even hosts these things in the South. They are mostly on the coast or in big Midwestern, metropolitan cities," Halsell said. "It is helpful for Little Rock to be able to showcase its efforts around energy efficiency. Little Rock wants to lead by example. It's particularly important because as the capital city for our state, they set an example for other cities to follow."
Other actions and commitments announced by Obama on Friday aim to build a skilled solar workforce, provide financing for deploying solar technologies, improve appliance efficiency and strengthen building codes. Training programs at community colleges in California, South Dakota, Illinois, Texas, North Carolina and Maine will help 50,000 workers enter the solar industry by 2020, according to a White House fact sheet.
Wal-Mart was one of 10 U.S.-based companies highlighted by the president in Friday's announcement. The retail store has committed to double the number of on-site solar energy projects at its U.S. stores, Sam's Clubs and distribution centers by 2020.
"The private sector commitments and executive actions announced today reinforce American leadership in innovating and deploying clean energy, cutting energy waste and creating good paying jobs that cannot be outsourced," the White House news release said.
Metro on 05/10/2014