HOUSTON – October 5, 2015 – In addition to maintaining Houston’s electric infrastructure and restoring power after storms, CenterPoint Energy also operates and maintains 412,000 streetlights throughout its 5,000 square mile service territory.
“Streetlights play a significant role in communities, reducing the risks of nighttime accidents, discouraging crime and vandalism, and making residents feel secure,” said Deryl Tumlinson, director of Streetlight Operations for CenterPoint Energy. “The majority of our operations crews perform their work during daylight hours, making it nearly impossible to detect streetlight outages. That’s why we also rely on our customers to report these outages and National Night Out, an annual event designed to unite communities, promote safety and help prevent crime, is the perfect time to remind the public about the importance of reporting streetlight outages.”
Customers can report streetlight outages online via the company’s streetlight outage reporting tool website. The tool provides a method for customers to easily locate and report outages by streetlight number, address or general location and provides a way to track the status of repairs.
Streetlight outages can also be reported to CenterPoint Energy’s customer service department at 713-207-2222.
City of Houston LED streetlight conversion underway
While the City of Houston continues to be a leader among U.S. cities in energy efficiency, CenterPoint Energy has also been recognized as a leading utility in the deployment of advanced electric technology. To that end, CenterPoint Energy and the City of Houston are partnering on a 5-year project to convert the approximately 176,000 street lights in the City of Houston from traditional lighting sources to LED lighting.
LED lighting uses 50-60 percent less energy and lowers associated carbon emissions. Once the conversion is completed, it’s expected that the City’s consumption of electricity could be reduced by about 70 million kilowatt hours annually - enough to power approximately 5,400 homes in the Houston area.
LED lights also last significantly longer, greatly reducing street light outages and replacement costs and enhancing the safety of neighborhoods throughout the city.
Through the company’s energy efficiency programs and support of partnerships like this one with the City of Houston, CenterPoint Energy is committed to promoting the safe, reliable, efficient and environmentally responsible use of energy.
For more information on this project and to see the deployment map, please visit CenterPointEnergy.com/LEDStreetlights.