LED There Be Light: Amsterdam Begins Installing Energy-Saving Streetlights

Construction is underway in the City of Amsterdam as NYPA begins the installation of nearly 2,000 energy-efficient SMART LED streetlights as part of our Smart Street Lighting NY program.

To date, the program has seen more than half a million LED streetlights installed throughout the state. The goal is to see a reduction in electricity demand in nearly 2 million New York households by 2025.

Getting to this point has been a big undertaking for NYPA, and the team behind the project is excited to begin construction.

“For a project manager, construction is the fun part of the project,” said Lead Project Engineer I Charles Hermann (He/Him) . “In a lot of these small towns, you might be looking at a few days of construction to install a few hundred lights, but you’re doing a year-long acquisition process, sometimes longer with all the paperwork and prep that goes along with it. So the actual construction is always exciting.”

“Assisting the City of Amsterdam in the acquisition and conversion of existing streetlights to LED has been a very fulfilling, multi-year process,” said Casey Mastro, CSAM , lead key account executive. “The best part in that process is the building of relationships. When the mayor or city staff pick up the phone and call with a question and you see that trust has been built one positive and progressive interaction at a time, that’s an amazing feeling.”

The new fixtures will save Amsterdam $340,000 in annual operating costs and bring down greenhouse gas emissions by 100 metric tons—the equivalent of removing 23 cars from the road. In addition, the streetlights will be monitored and controlled by a new asset management system, which will provide dimming options and outage reporting.

“When we start doing installations like this, we start getting feedback from the customers,” Chuck said. “We’ll hear that the residents are calling the village hall, or attending town meetings, or even that they’ll run into the mayor in the coffee shop and express how much easier it is to see at night and how much they appreciate the better lighting.”

Casey agreed, noting, “I love how sincere in their gratitude our customers can be when they feel heard.  I may not, or NYPA team members may not, always have an immediate answer to a question, but we listen to our customers and seek to find those answers.”  

Amsterdam is the latest municipality to convert to LED streetlights, joining such cities as Albany, Utica, Rochester and Syracuse. The cost savings generated by Smart Street Lighting NY can be as much as 65 percent more efficient than alternative street lighting options.

The program provides a wide range of lighting options to help customers meet their individual needs. These include specifications on the lights to incorporate SMART technology, which can be used for dozens of other functions, such as cameras and other safety features, weather sensors, and energy meters.

“In cases like these,” Chuck said, “we’re bringing real cost-savings to people and reducing cost in a time when prices keep going up, this this gives the town some flexibility and provides them a little bit of relief.”

Chuck and Casey agreed that what makes a project like this worthwhile is knowing that NYPA’s customers and the residents of the communities we serve are being impacted positively.

“What is very rewarding is knowing these types of projects focus on the health and safety of local government residents first,” Casey said. “Reducing greenhouse gas emissions. increasing energy efficiency and digital control of assets and saving city operational costs are all extremely important, but the comfort and safety of pedestrians in a properly lit city is a primary focus.”