He said CUC received an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant to purchase LED streetlights.
“Mercury streetlights are old technology,” he said.
Malae was reacting to the letter of Frederick Prosser published on Sept. 14 by the Marianas Variety.
Prosser said CUC lost money by switching from mercury vapor bulbs to sodium lamps.
Sodium bulbs are cheaper but they do not have the life span of the mercury vapor bulbs, Prosser said.
But Malae said the life cycle cost of HPS light is lower than mercury lamps.
“The bright ones you see in the streets are not energy efficient. Go to any town in the U.S. or especially in other Pacific islands where power costs are high (e.g., American Samoa, Tahiti) and you will see almost exclusively, HPS,” he said.
He said mercury lamps are manufactured by third world countries and the prices dropped “as they try to fob off excess inventories to those clueless utilities with energy to burn.”
U.S. utilities moved away from using these as streetlights years ago, he said, adding that Saipan vendors should not be selling these lamps anymore.
