Austin Energy is systematically installing flat-glass fixtures in all of Austin’s 70,000 streetlights to direct light down rather than up and out into the sky. The fixtures will make our city’s streetlight system “Dark Sky” compliant, preserving Austin’s night sky while improving lighting and system efficiency. To date, the flat-glass fixtures have been installed on about 14,000 lights.

We also began a project in 2011 to install communications devices on all Austin streetlights. The communications device signals whether each light is turning off and on properly. It also signals streetlights that are out — or that stay on during the day. A huge benefit of the system is that crews are alerted to streetlight outages before customers call in and can make all needed repairs in an area, reducing the number of individual trips. The system will also allow Austin Energy to consistently fine tune throughout the year the time of day that streetlights turn on and off to more precisely match up with changing daylight hours. About 28,000 streetlights are outfitted with the devices thus far.

The goal is to complete all of these upgrades by 2015.

Read more about Dark Sky Compliance at http://www.darksky.org/

Images of work in progress: