LED lights cut wattage by more than 90 percent

BY KEVIN BONESKE

REPORTER/PHOTOGRAPHER

The Oneida County Courthouse dome is now being lit at night with less than 10 percent of the wattage used previously following the installation of LED lighting completed late last month.

The county’s Buildings and Grounds Committee was informed Monday by that department’s director, LuAnn Brunette, that the plan last November to replace the old bulbs using 4,500 watts called for reducing the wattage to approximately 1,000 with eight dimmable LED strip lights at a cost of $2,461, for which the cost in electricity savings would have been paid back in about 1.3 years.

Instead, Brunette noted buildings and grounds maintenance technicians came up with a solution to use just two of the strip lights (288 watts) along with six LED flood lights (60 watts) and LED rope lighting (2 watts), which would be turned on at night by a light sensor for a total of the items installed being $785.

“We were able to do this for a savings of $1,676 over what we talked about doing back in November…,” she said. “We’re actually getting better illumination in the evening, and it will be a lot more cost efficient to run, so hopefully we’ll be experiencing some savings to our electrical bills in the future.”