Last week The Munster Express led with the story of concentric cables that will cost the Council up to €40m to replace 4,000 public lights which are connected to underground cables that do not meet modern standards.
These cables, which contain no earth, will cost between €5,000 and €10,000 per light to replace, mainly to do groundworks, and is a legacy issue inherited by the Council from the ESB.
Concentric cables are a safety concern and have caused extended lighting outages around the City and County.
Waterford City and County Council addressed the issue in a statement last week.
They explained that Waterford City and County Council is one of 21 Local Authorities that has participated in the National Public Lighting Energy Efficiency Project (PLEEP) to upgrade public lighting to LED technology.
Almost 10,000 lights were retrofitted in Waterford under this project. The primary objective of the project was to the maximise energy savings and enhance efficiency across the public lighting network.
The installation of the LED lights has resulted in excess of 50% in energy savings, helping the Council towards their 51% CO2 and 50% energy reduction target by 2030.
Gabriel Hynes, Acting Director of Services for Roads, Water and Environment with Waterford City and County Council noted that apart from the energy savings, the energy efficiency programme has resulted in less public lighting outages.
According to the Council approximately 98.7% of public lighting is on and functioning correctly.
Mr. Hynes commented: “This has an added benefit in cost savings being made through less maintenance being required on the led lighting installations”.
“Funding of the upgrades was partially covered by the Department of Climate, Energy and Environment’s Climate Action Fund to a sum of €1m with the remainder being funded by Waterford City and County Council. As a result, in 2025 energy cost savings of €358,179 were achieved by the Council due to the PLEEP process,” he said.
The Council statement explains that since 1950 “public lights were installed on existing ESB overhead networks, and from 1970 to 1985 underground concentric cabling was installed, however this cabling infrastructure has reached end of life and needs to be completely replaced if it fails”.
“Almost 20% of Waterford City and County Council’s public lighting inventory consists of older concentric cable infrastructure, and this will require significant upgrade and investment in the region of €20-€30m to address these legacy issues. Waterford City and County Council has submitted a funding request to the Department of Climate, Energy and Environment.
“Waterford City and County Council will continue to maintain all public lighting, targeting the incidents of non-functional public lighting to remain below 2% of total lighting stock at any given time,” the council statement added.
Public lighting faults can be logged on the Deadsure app or via Waterford City and County Council’s website: https://waterfordcouncil.ie/services/roads-transport/public-lighting/
AARON KENT
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme
