Street Lighting

You may see a Tanko Lighting auditor out and about. Auditors will be in towns and rural areas recording details about every street and area light in the county. This includes street lights owned and maintained by the PUD, street lights owned and maintained by cities, the state and the county, and area (yard-type) lights owned by the PUD for which customers pay monthly electric-use charges. If you have an area light, you may see a Tanko Lighting auditor on or near your property.

• Energy efficient
• Provide cost savings to customer-owners and tax payers as a result of reduced maintenance and energy use
• Longer life span, requiring less maintenance
• Provides truer light (better color and light quality) for improved visibility
• Dark-Sky compliant
• Increased safety and security
• Would standardize LED fixtures throughout the county
• Supports the PUD’s energy conservation targets

After the inventory data is reviewed, PUD staff may recommend replacing all PUD-owned street and area lights starting in 2017.  The PUD also would work with city, state and county officials about converting street lights not owned by the PUD to LEDs.

LED street lights have already been installed in these locations:

• Wenatchee – Fifth Street near Wenatchee Valley College
• Wenatchee – West end of the George Sellar Bridge
• Wenatchee – PUD Headquarters Building parking lot
• Wenatchee – PUD Warehouse Building on Hawley Street
• Chelan – All steel-pole lights in Chelan city limits
• Cashmere – Sunset Highway

The project will include placing sample LED  streetlights in a few Wenatchee neighborhoods.  The sample lights will be installed in March 2016 for about sixty days.

• Cashmere Street between Lewis and Ferry Streets
• Methow, Cashmere, Monitor, and Lincoln Streets
• Washington Street between Wilson and Franklin Streets
• Miller Street between Bryan and Castlerock Streets
• Throughout Washington Park

Please call the PUD’s outage hotline at 509-663-8121.

An area light is mounted on a PUD-owned wood pole and is paid for by the individual customer it serves.   The PUD’s contractor, Tanko Lighting, will include area lights in its inventory. We expect the inventory could reveal some billing discrepancies. If that’s the case with your light, the PUD may contact you. The PUD will provide more information to you directly if a plan is developed to retrofit all street and area lights.

LED fixtures are not dimmer. High Pressure Sodium fixtures typically pool the light underneath the fixture, while LED fixtures are more efficient at delivery and produce an even disbursement of light.

When street lights are changed to LEDs, only the head of the light fixture is replaced.  The pole and the mast remain intact. The High Pressure Sodium street light heads are removed and will be recycled.