Electric Projects

In 2011, Power and Communications began upgrading the high-pressure sodium (HPS) bulbs in the street lights throughout Estes Park to LED bulbs. Power and Communications maintain over 500 streetlights in the Estes Valley including highway lights along Highways 34, 36, and 7, neighborhood street lights, and the decorative lights around downtown. Following several initial pushes to change out stretches of lights, upgrades are ongoing as the HPS lights need to be replaced. In some instances, the new LED bulbs can simply be swapped into the existing light fixture, in other cases, an adaptor must be used to upgrade the light. In some fixtures, the whole light head needs to be replaced, as there is no adaptor.

LED lights use about 50% less energy than HPS bulbs, and last about 4 times longer. This translates into significant savings in energy costs to the Town in energy savings and maintenance costs over the lifetime of the bulbs. LED lights also increase safety and night-time visibility. The LED lights being installed along the highways and neighborhoods have an improved distribution of light compared to HPS lights. The LEDs shed light along the roadway, increasing visibility in dark spots between street light poles, rather than solely dumping light directly below street light fixtures as the HPS luminaires did. The LEDs also have a shield that can be added to reduce the amount of back-lighting that spills behind the street light pole and onto adjacent properties. LED lights also produce a white light, where HPS lights produce a light that looks yellow/orange. The white light allows colors to appear more natural at night, improving color rendering and visibility of other vehicles, pedestrians, and wildlife.

Power and Communications crews are upgrading the fuses at critical junctions throughout the Light &, Power service area. TripSaver Cutout-Mounted Reclosers are installed in place of traditional cutout fuses along overhead distribution powerlines. 

They are often placed at the junction between the main line and lateral lines. TripSavers are an integral component of the system upgrades that Power and Communications has added to its service area.

TripSavers can be set to function two ways: as a traditional cutout fuse or as an OCR (oil circuit recloser). When set as a cutout fuse, it senses unusually high current (fault current) and opens. This breaks the circuit and turns off the power beyond that opening.
When the TripSaver is set to function in place of an OCR it can be programmed to "operate" (open and close) a certain number of times before it's locked out (opens and stays open). A TripSaver will lock out under two circumstances 1) high current for longer than a set time (1-1.5 seconds), or 2) current higher than the programmed load limit for any length of time. Otherwise, the TripSaver will operate to allow the fault to clear, this causes the power to blink, but it will stay on. For example, if a tree branch falls on the line and causes a fault, the TripSaver will operate three times, this allows time for the branch to fall off the line and clear the fault. Without the TripSaver, the single fault would cause the cutout fuse to open and power beyond that point would be lost until the fuse could be replaced.
The TripSaver has an additional setting as a safety precaution for working on energized lines. The one-shot setting programs the TripSaver to open immediately once it senses a specified load (amount of current).
TripSavers have the advantage of requiring less maintenance than an OCR since there is no oil to refill. It also maintains a record of operations, so crews have a better idea of what's happening along the line.