PRISM shines light on savings

TALL ORDER: The Partnership for Rhode Island Streetlight Management, founded and led by Jeffrey A. Broadhead, left, is helping cities and towns find significant savings by converting streetlights to light-emitting diodes. Installing a new light in Providence is electrician Jim Mitchell.
TALL ORDER: The Partnership for Rhode Island Streetlight Management, founded and led by Jeffrey A. Broadhead, left, is helping cities and towns find significant savings by converting streetlights to light-emitting diodes. Installing a new light in Providence is electrician Jim Mitchell.

CEO (or equivalent): Jeffrey A. Broadhead, executive director

2015 Revenue: $5,117,075

2013 Revenue: $189,941

Revenue growth: 2,594%

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THE PARTNERSHIP FOR RHODE ISLAND STREETLIGHT MANAGEMENT, a nonprofit based in South Kingstown, takes on the tall task of maintenance for the new LED-streetlight conversion in Providence and throughout the state.

The goal of the light conversion – which began in April and was slated to be done by the end of September – will replace 16,800 cobra-head, high-pressure sodium vapor streetlights in the city with light-emitting diodes. LEDs use about one-third of the electricity of regular streetlights.

PRISM, which has taken over the maintenance from National Grid, has helped save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars. Under PRISM, the cost to maintain LEDs will drop from $2 million a year to a projected $404,058 per year. According to Jeffrey A. Broadhead, founder and executive director of PRISM, National Grid charges $170,000 per month. And over the last three months, under PRISM management, the actual cost was about $12,000, for a monthly savings of $157,000.

Broadhead came up with the idea for PRISM when he was working on energy-efficiency improvements for municipalities back in 2011. Nine energy fellows from the University of Rhode Island were working with him, studying the energy usage of certain buildings.

“They were creating these enormous spreadsheets of data from electric bills. I was simply checking the work – and I kept finding what I thought were mistakes. But I then realized what I thought were mistakes were streetlight accounts and I figured, ‘OK, there is something wrong with the way we’re getting billed on streetlights.’ It’s legal, but it’s outrageous.”

Broadhead and his team received funding to look into the problem, and they found it was a statewide issue. In 2012, the group presented and defended new legislation before the state Public Utilities Commission. The rules went into effect in the summer of 2013. “Now we’re helping towns all over the state to buy their assets and then include them. So really it’s asset management … We just had to do a lot of groundwork first.”

As a fastest-growing company, Broadhead has managed the workflow effectively.

PRISM is a bit understaffed, but, he notes: “We’re lucky that it’s not like a retail operation. It’s not like we’re all of a sudden selling 1 million more widgets than before. It’s that we’re selling none before and now we’re selling a few large orders. It’s not as much of an administrative burden as one would think.”

Twenty-three other communities have become associated with PRISM, and West Warwick, Tiverton and North Smithfield are next in line for LED conversions. “Our hope is that we go from one town to the next town to the next town,” said Broadhead. “Our hope is to stay busy all year.”

Broadhead attributes much of PRISM’s success to excellent service. “When we took over Providence’s maintenance, we repair the lights the day after we get a request. We return every single phone call. With PRISM, you get called back.”

PRISM is governed by its customers, said Broadhead. It’s structured as a nonprofit and it’s local.

“It’s local people running a local company. We use local electricians to do the work on local streetlights. And to me, that’s the benefit and that’s where a lot of our economy is going, and should be going. I think we’re both internationalizing in many ways and going local in many ways, and PRISM is an example of the local side of things.” •

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