SOLEDAD — City of Soledad has earned a Beacon Spotlight Award by replacing streetlights with LED lighting and making energy saving improvements at the Water Reclamation Facility.
The Beacon Spotlight Award was presented to Soledad Councilmember Anna Velazquez during the League of Cities Annual Conference in Long Beach on Sept. 12.
The Spotlight Award was given to the City of Soledad under the Agency Energy Savings category. The award recognizes individual accomplishments of cities or counties participating in the Beacon Program as they work to complete the five elements necessary to achieve the Beacon Award.
The elements include greenhouse gas reductions, electricity savings, natural gas savings, community greenhouse gas reduction and activities in each of the Institute’s 10 Sustainability Best Practice Areas.
“The Beacon Spotlight Award was really because of the hard work in Public Works,” Velazquez said.
The City of Soledad had its streetlights changed from High Pressure Sodium light fixtures to energy efficient Light Emitting Diode fixtures to reduce the amount of energy being consumed and provide better lighting.
The City is also working with Yambe and Horn to bring streetlights to areas that are in need of street lighting.
The City is working with PG&E on the new lighting areas, and PG&E will be adding lighting and new poles where lighting can be added at no charge to the City.
The other half of the Beacon Award comes due to the Anoxic Mixers Replacement project, which was completely funded by PG&E incentives and is anticipated to save approximately $50,000 per year in electricity costs.
“The AMBAG team also recommended making changes to the 350 Horsepower constant speed blowers at the City’s Water Reclamation Facility,” said Soledad Public Works Director Donald Wilcox.
The City would like to modify the HP blowers to reduce the horsepower to 46 percent and reduce the electricity used.
“Air output would be reduced but still meet the operable range necessary to run the Water Reclamation Facility, and result in little or no wasting of excess air while meeting all the air demands of the plant,” Wilcox said.
