37,000 light bulbs will be replaced in Halifax area beginning this week

A Dartmouth company is preparing to change a lot of light bulbs as work begins this week to convert roughly 37,000 streetlights in the Halifax area to LED.

The city has already replaced about 7,000 lights piece by piece. This spring, municipal council approved a $47-million plan to change the remainder.

Halifax officials say the new LEDs are more energy efficient, last longer and require less maintenance. All told, the city says it expects to save $5 million a year.

The work will take 18 months and has been contracted to GJ Cahill and Company Ltd from Dartmouth. The LED technology itself is supplied by a local company, LED Roadway Lighting Ltd.

Once the full array of lights is replaced, the city says there will be no more need for residents to report outages as a new system will monitor for problems in real time.

The hefty bill for all the work includes more than $7 million heading to Nova Scotia Power. Halifax rented thousands of street lights from the power company and bought them as part of the LED upgrade plan.

The old high pressure sodium streetlights that are being taken down will be sent to Dan-x Recycling in Dartmouth.