Work has been continuing to swap out the photocell receivers on streetlights in town and the surrounding area for new smart-system control units.
The work will be completed by Clements Electrical and Southroads.
The contract for installation also includes cleaning, inspecting and maintaining the lights.
The council’s roading manager Kushla Tapper said the smart-system would save money by providing more reliable usage data for billing, reducing total power consumption, and reducing electricity drain at peak times.
The total budget for the project would be under $360,000.
Mrs Tapper said the 1550 control units were bought and paid for by the council in previous years, making up the majority of the budget.
She said the smart-system allowed all units to be controlled in the same way, rather than using multiple systems.
"We can control certain areas to dim or turn off as needed, without interfering with others. Light levels can be adjusted throughout the night, to reduce electricity drain and use.
"Because the power consumption will be measured rather than calculated, this also saves time and effort, especially with electricity regulators and auditors, so council can obtain better pricing," she said.
"Power usage has been hard to accurately detail, because of the variable sunlight levels. So even within a season, lights could have turned off earlier than yesterday, but we wouldn’t have this accurately recorded," she said.
The system also has additional functions for the future, including turning some lights off completely during parts of the night (for dark sky projects, or during aurora australis events) or even enable a flashing function for use during Civil Defence alerts, something the council would be working on in future, Mrs Tapper said.
WDC was one of the first councils to take advantage of an 85% subsidy to replace the old SON and HPS lights, beginning in 2016.
The streetlights, except for the heritage lights, are all LED and further upgrades will be made.
"The heritage lights in lower Thames St, and the historic precinct, will be updated to have LED light ‘gear trays’ installed within the existing heritage lamp casing, as part of a separate project.
"Council has ordered the ‘yellowest’ LED colour range available for those lights, so that the warm glow is unlikely to change," Mrs Tapper said.
The smart-system will cover the streets in Oamaru, but not State Highway 1.
While the council usually has delegated power for these lights, that is on hold while New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) considers a national management plan for state highway street lighting.
Mrs Tapper said there may be some flickering of the streetlights when they are turned on, as a result of the lights operating on two different systems.
The council will work with NZTA on a plan to include the highway network should they require it.
An NZTA spokesperson said the agency was looking at a street and highway lighting system, that sounds "almost identical" to WDC, to get a consistent asset base across the country.
"This will enable us to install lighting control points (LCPs) to manage and control our lighting in the same way, through a central management system."
The work is to be done over two three-year National Land Transport Programme funding periods, for 2024 to 2027 and 2027 to 2030.
