Yukon Energy and Yukon Electrical Co. Ltd. have implemented pilot programs to test new Light Emitting Diode (LED) streetlights.

The publicly-owned electrical utility will be testing six lights along Second Avenue in Dawson City to see how they stand up in the northern climate.

"Research shows that LED lights work well in other places,” Yukon Energy spokesperson Janet Patterson said in a recent new release.

"We need to find out if they are a good lighting option for a community such as Dawson City, which typically has colder and darker winters than locations further south.”

Dawson residents will be invited to provide feedback on the performance of the LED technology.

If the streetlights work, Yukon Energy would look at installing them in the three major communities it serves – Dawson, Mayo and Faro.

The test lights will also be fitted with a backlight shield to reduce the amount of light pollution into the night sky.

Patterson said while the LED streetlights cost $800, or four times the $200 cost for regular lights, they generally last four times longer and use about 40 per cent less energy.

"Again, we will be monitoring this over the winter to see if that is indeed the case,” Patterson said.

Yukon Energy is working with Yukon Electrical and the territorial government to look at ways to increase efficiencies and reduce consumption.

Yukon Energy provides the bulk of generation in the territory, and Yukon Electrical is responsible for most of the distribution networks and streetlighting.

Yukon Energy, for instance, manages about 650 streetlights while Yukon Electrical has about 6,000 in its inventory, approximately 4,300 of which are located in Whitehorse.

The privately-owned utility has installed 24 LED lights in four areas of the city.

Wayne Tonsi, manager of customer service for Yukon Electrical, said the selected streets – Valleyview, Jarvis Street, Donjek Road and Tatchun Road – were chosen because they are relatively low-traffic streets.

Just as Dawson residents will be invited to provide feedback on the lights, so too will be the residents living near LEDs installed in Whitehorse, he said.

"We will be distributing a questionnaire to customers in those specific areas to facilitate that feedback,” Tonsi said in a news release last week.

"We are excited about this pilot project and look forward to hearing from our customers.”

The service manager said it's too early to discuss how quickly a transition might occur, or what a new fee structure might look like for municipalities, given the higher cost of LED lights initially, lower cost for energy and the lights' longer life.

Those types of details will come later, once the utilities have had a chance to test the viability of the product in the North, he said.

Tonsi said the pilot program is expected to go for the next six to eight months, but could go longer if this winter's weather doesn't present normal conditions – if it's warmer than usual, for instance.

Generally, he pointed out, it costs municipalities about $180 per street light every year, of which $75 is for electricity and the remainder for operation and maintenance.

Altogether, Yukoners pay about $1.4 million annually to light up their streets, said Patterson.

The Yukon government's Energy Solutions Centre is contributing $2,000 to help offset the $21,000 cost of Yukon Energy's initiative in Dawson City, Colin McDowell, the centre's director, said today.

He said the centre is contributing $4,000 toward Yukon Electrical's $32,500 cost for the Whitehorse pilot program.