How much does a street light cost to run?

We have been waiting for the EV charger to be installed after it was delayed due to an extra wire in the house intake box. Told it was a “daisy chain” to next door doors supply and needed a quote/rewire. This could be the wrong description as it was retold to me by my angry wife.

But no, we supply the power for the street light at the bottom of the drive 🙂 Are they all powered like this?

What, wired in after your meter?

Google suggests between £25 to £65 depending if it’s a residential street or a main road. Less if it’s been upgraded to LED.

That would be getting easily rectified if it was my house, assuming I could be sure I’d isolated it.

Are you saying you are paying for the electricity powering the street light?

I would be on to the local council looking for a refund for all the time I had been powering it.

It’ll be a looped supply so it’ll be between the spur off the mains but before the meter, you won’t be paying to run the streetlight. But it means you can’t just have your fuse uprated without it being unlooped.

https://www.cord-ev.com/knowledgebase/what-is-looped-supply-/

if its a private road (instead of adopted) I could see an option where it is wired in post-meter (every house powering the light nearest them to avoid needing a separate power supply to the street). seems unlikely though.

The total leccy bill for our street of 17 houses is £300 (including some sort of service charge I imagine) – I would estimate there’s a dozen or so lighting bollards, each running old school energy saving or led bulbs, turned off at 11pm or so

Waiting for the electricity supplier to get back to the wife now.

The electrician mentioned we are supplying the power and that is not that much of a cost. Developers could do what they wanted in the older days.

Angry wife is more annoyed at the delay in installing of the EV charger.

As mentioned above there are a few factors. If you’re on a street adopted by the local authority then it’s not down to you to pay for the power used, street lighting is typically an unmetered supply.

Some confusion may occur if the terminology is not understood.

The cable from your supplier comes into a cutout. This is where the “looping” takes place. Whether the street lamp comes from the top or the bottom of the cutout only changes whether it not it shares your fuse. This is the fuse that may need upgrading for the EV charger.

It’s possible what the electrician has said was misunderstood it’s also possible they were wrong. I don’t like to be disparaging about others but I’ve seen it a few times where the incoming supply has been misunderstood

Now, it’s not strictly the case that the charger can’t be fitted on a looped service, just that the demand needs to be controlled until the delooping and fuse upgrade.

A photo of your supply including the cutout and meter would allow people to advise further

https://www.flickr.com/photos/193473136@N05/54034925063/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/193473136@N05/54033810182/in/dateposted-public/

@onzadog. Thank you for the long reply, I got “thats what he told me” from the wife when asking if he definitely told her we were paying for the power.

So more than possible he was wrong or she heard it wrong.

You need a picture of the cutout/fuse and your meter. Those two pics dont give much of a clue. It’s not uncommon for the street supply to come from one of the houses, but they are usually tapped off before the meter, so you are not paying for the lights to be on.

I will get a picture of the meter later- wife took the key to work.

So who pays for council street lighting if the are on an un metered connection via a “house”?

easy way to test would be to flip the fuse box switch after dark. If the light outside is still on, and your meters not going up, you’re not paying

So who pays for council street lighting if the are on an un metered connection via a “house”?

You, via Council tax. The electricity supplier has an algorithm to work out the costs per lamps/gear within and charges the Council on a cumulative basis according to the algorithm.

it’s an industry standard, Google BSCP520 for explanation.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/193473136@N05/54036249808/in/dateposted-public/lightbox/

From that picture, you’re not paying for street lighting. It’s a simple looped service. Doesn’t actually make any difference whether it runs to the neighbours house or a street lamp. In fact, the out going cable looks pretty chunky for a single lamp.

Supply cable comes into the cutout and the looped service goes out. This is seen in the bottom of the photo and is all DNO equipment so nothing to do with you, or the meter operated.

The supply then goes through the fuse which is the grey block protruding from the larger grey box. Then two cables, live and neutral run into your meter and a live and neutral come out of the meter to supply your property.

Bit surprised the cut out needs upgrading as a home EV charger is only 7.5 kW so less than most showers. We have two 10 kW showers that can be running at the same time. What’s the other white box in the right with the black cable coming out the bottoming the meter? Looks like it has a DNO seal on it.

Edit actually 2 10 kW showers is 80 odd amps so if it’s a 60 amp cut out it may not cope. I think my cut out is 100 amp.

The cutout doesn’t need upgrading. It’s rated at 100A. It might be the fuse that needs upgrading. The box top right is a Comms until for the meter

Thank you for the above info, this is from the Reply after we submitted the wiring pictures

We have reviewed your application and require a further information in order to make a decision on this application.

Our assessors have left this comment: Our initial review of your application concludes that we need to upgrade your connection to meet the load requirements of your application. SSEN will be in touch directly with a quote & to advise what works are required. For your information, this application is registered with SSEN under reference 240827-000793 – FDD840 please include this reference in the subject field of any emails to SSEN.

OP do you have a local wizard that could help?  🙂

The electrician mentioned we are supplying the power and that is not that much of a cost

If the pictures you’ve posted tell the full story, then your ‘electrician’ is an idiot.

You can go from 60A to 80A on a looped supply, and there are no restrictions really beyond that provided the charger has current limiting. I used to be on a loop, and the only thing that Northern Powergrid mentioned when they came to up-rate the fuse to 80A was that it’s first-come-first-served, so if you and your neighbour want a car charger there might be issues.

Not possible to run a new feed to my place at the time due to grade 2 listed building.

This is an ENA guide from a quick google.  ( not checked its age/currency) It mentions looped services and load limiting devices which as mentioned above can be an option.  Someone mentioned shower ratings…  The EV charger may only be 7.5 kw but unlike the shower may be on for 5-8 hours or whatever.  The thermal rise can be a factor in the cut out,  add in a loop to your neighbour who is doing Sunday dinner while you charge and the block of copper in the cut out is dealing with more than it might have done prior to EV and heat pump stuff.  Many older props have their service position inside and not in an outside meter box  and this can add to the challenges if customers have boxed it in so it looks nice but it’s now running warmer than ever.

https://www.energynetworks.org/assets/images/Resource%20library/Electric%20Vehilcle%20Chargepoint%20and%20Heat%20Pump%20Combined%20Installation%20Process%20Flow%20Chart%20v1.3.pdf

Looped services and how they impact the requestor and their neighbours is challenging as it can mean tearing up someone’s driveway who isnt getting a new EV, they are often not happy about the prospect ?

You, via Council tax. The electricity supplier has an algorithm to work out the costs per lamps/gear within and charges the Council on a cumulative basis according to the algorithm.

If I recall the DNO actually keeps an inventory of all unmetered equipment and how much it will use, this info is then sent to DC’s/MA’s and then onwards to the supplier to bill their customer, in this case its not the OP, its probably the council.

If the pictures you’ve posted tell the full story, then your ‘electrician’ is an idiot.

Just checked the ring camera, unless he stole the van it was a SSEN electrician. He can only have seen what the picture shows and the lamp post.

The cost was not really an issue just the big delay in the charger install. Octopus customer service has been weirdly good. They sent a free charger, but they don’t want it back when the installation is complete. I guessed this was to get her off the phone but they also sent a bunch of roses.

If the pictures you’ve posted tell the full story, then your ‘electrician’ is an idiot.

I wouldn’t have prettied that up, he’s worryingly incompetent if OP had the full story from his partner.

Why would he have said “not much as they are now LED lights” she is getting pissed off at me for questioning her account? 🙂