Streetlights

There are 199 decorative streetlamps on the island, primarily in the downtown historic area and in 'Sconset. These are owned by the Town and National Grid helps maintain them.

All but a few of them are High Pressure Sodium (HPS) fixtures.  The LED fixtures that have been installed are either 3000K, 2700K  or 2200K.

Source: The Town of Nantucket's Energy Office in consultation with National Grid.

The island has 593 "cobra"-style streeltights (the ones on utility poles). These are currently owned by National Grid.  Most of them are still High Pressure Sodium (HPS) but some are LED, including six on Milestone Rd that are 4000K. These were installed in 2019-20 as part of a pilot to gauge community reaction. (More on that below.)

Source: The Town of Nantucket's Energy Office in consultation with National Grid.

The streetlights and streetlamps that illuminate the streets of Nantucket have become both old and outdated. A great many other communities in Massachusetts (and around the country) have already converted their streetlights to new ones powered by light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. And the time has come to consider such a conversion for Nantucket.

LEDs offer great advantages in terms of energy savings and reduced electricity costs. However, if chosen poorly, they also have the potential to greatly increase the amount of glare that drivers, pedestrians, and those with homes near streetlights must cope with, as well as increase the light pollution in our naturally dark nighttime skies, reducing our ability to see the stars at night and causing harm to wildlife (see article below).

Lovers of Nantucket's dark sky need to pay attention and monitor developments on this front to make sure the right choices are made!

2021 WPI STUDENT REPORT:

Investigating the Conversion to LED Streetlighting on Nantucket (Dec. 2021)

2024 WPI STUDENT REPORT:

Achieving Compliance with Nantucket’s Outdoor Lighting Bylaw (Dec. 2024)

LED STREETLIGHT CONVERSION FEASIBILITY AND COST-SAVINGS STUDY (2022):

• Announced in Town Newsletter, June 2022
• Nantucket Lights Memo to Intergovernmental Workgroup about this study, July 2022
  

CHECKLIST

IDA-MA Checklist for Dark-Sky Compliant Streetlights (August 2022)

In 2019-20, six of the "cobra"-style streetlights on Milestone Road, owned by National Grid, were converted to LED at the Town's request to gauge community reaction. The blue teardrops on the map above show their locations. The fixtures are 4000K and 48W. 

While these LEDs are more energy efficient and more dark-sky friendly in some respects than the HPS streetlights they replaced, their color temperature is higher than that recommended by the International Dark Sky Association and the Massachusetts Medical Society.  DarkSky International (formerly known as the International Dark Sky Association) now recommends 2200K for "most" outdoor lighting applications, and the Massachusetts Medical Society recommends no higher than 2700K.

At the time of installation, National Grid's policy was to install only 4000K LED for streetlights that they own.  While they now offer 3000K, the fixtures they have chosen to purchase are reportedly not ideal in terms of backlighting, uplighting and glare. To have better fixtures -- and the option of having streetlights lower than 3000K -- the Town would have to purchase the streetlights from National Grid and assume responsibility for converting them to LED and then maintaining them, as many other towns have done. (A preliminary analysis by a streetlight consultant indicates that this would SAVE the Town money in the long run.)

Please see below about the "promise and pitfalls" of LED streetlighting and then, if you would like to provide feedback about the LEDs on Milestone, please email Nantucket's Energy Coordinator, Lauren Sinatra, at   

LSinatra@nantucket-ma.gov (with a cc to us at nantucketlights@gmail.com).