The City of Kelowna is currently in the hiring process for an outside consultant, who can deliver on a plan to install 10,000 LED streetlights across Kelowna.
Energy Program Manager Brydan Tollefson says they're bringing in some experts, to make sure they don't make the same mistakes as other cities have in the past.
"There's been good installations and bad installations, and this is the one thing that we believe is going to help, or at least minimize the number of problems that we might foresee when we get to the implementation stage" he said.
"So, it's been recommended by a number of people, and ultimately we don't have the expertise in-house to do this. We're going to rely on industry experts to help us along."
Because LED bulbs are so much brighter, he says it's not just as simple as taking out the old high-pressure sodium lights and screwing in an LED bulb.
"Currently with high-pressure sodium, we have a range of wattages - everything from 70-Watt up to 250-Watt - and so we're just looking to get the appropriate replacement that isn't too bright or too dim," he said.
"Because the efficiency of LED and the optics of LED are so different, we want to make sure that we're doing that correctly, and not just doing a one-for-one replacement that might result in too much light, or too little light."
The up-front cost for this project is about $4 million, though the city projects it'll save almost a million dollars each year, in electricity and maintenance costs.
Tollefson says he hopes that the plan can be developed by the Fall, so they can get approval to buy the lights and hire a contractor.
"We're looking at 10,000 lights, so it's really hard to say until we actually engage a contractor, how long that's going to take," he said.
"We've heard estimates from other municipalities of how long things take, but depending on seasonal weather changes and things like that. Could it take up to a year? It might take a little less. But hopefully we'll be starting these replacements around the beginning of 2018."
He says that the city will also get a rebate from Fortis BC, as the project will allow it to reduce energy consumption.
Initial estimates on the rebate were for more than $500,000.