Mayor of Parkes Cr Ken Keith believes that when it comes to the installation of street lighting the authorities are `pretty slow on the uptake’ in regards to sourcing the best cost efficient systems.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
More than $260,000 was spent on street lighting from within council’s 2014/15 budget.
With the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) deciding to increase the Public Lighting revenue by 13 per cent per annum over the next five years, the additional cost to Council will rise by $38,350 per annum.
That’s why Parkes Shire Council wants Essential Energy to investigate a more energy efficient lighting replacement program.
“When it comes to street lighting, I believe there are a lot more efficient systems out there, such as LED lighting, at a lot less cost too,” Cr Keith said.
Council also wants a better system put in place to monitor the shire’s street lights.
However, with Essential Energy to announce statewide job cutbacks of approximately 1400 during the next few months - including several redundancies here in Parkes, the prospect of a better monitoring system doesn’t look good.
Where once electricity personnel would undertake night patrols to check on street lights, it is now dependent on local residents making the reports by phone - not to the local office but by calling 132391 or after hours on 132080.
Deputy Mayor Cr Alan Ward has described as `disappointing’ the number of street lights out in areas of Parkes.
“They should be monitored better. I can understand one or two street lights being out in town but to see some areas where there are four or five lights blown is very disappointing,” Cr Ward said.
Mr Ben Howard (Director Engineering Services) said Council received information from Essential Energy advising that the Australian Energy Regulator in increasing Public Lighting revenue to 13 per cent per annum, would reduce residential and small business tariffs by 11.9 per cent.
“In its draft decision released in November last year, the AER proposed unprecedented reductions in capital and operating programs of 66 and 35 per cent respectively for 2014-19,” Mr Howard said.
“That cut in funding translated to job losses of 4,600.
“In Essential Energy’s revised proposal to the AER, each business submitted sensible plans to drive progressive and continuing reforms to make operations more efficient.
“The plan, supported by respective unions, proposed 2,200 fewer jobs over four years,” Mr Howard said.
Mr Howard said Council’s committed expenditure for Public Lighting was estimated at $261,012 in the 2014/15 budget.
“An increase of 13 per cent would result in an additional cost to Council of up to $38,350 per annum, with the projected expenditure being $333,350.
“With reference to Council’s current energy expenditure, if entitled to the 11.9 per cent reduction, will reduce the yearly expenditure from approximately $1.2million to approximately $1,057,200 which is a savings of $142,800,” Mr Howard said.
Meanwhile, local Essential Energy staff are likely to find out within the next week of what job losses will be occurring here in Parkes.
Statewide, almost 3000 jobs are expected to be axed from the three electricity networks - Essential Energy (1395), Ausgrid (1100) and Endeavour Energy (254) - including forced redundancies.
