I know not everybody has such things in your location. But if so, how does the utility company in your area handle lease lights or private area lighting that is no longer used?

Here where I am they typically would remove the photocell but leave the lamp in the fixture. Which to me is kind of pointless because rain will corrode and spoil the inside without a photocell in place. However in some instances I’ve seen the wires disconnected and photocell and lamp left in place.

It very interesting to me, because it kind of leaves a “museum” of fixtures on poles even if those fixtures were installed decades ago by the utility. I’ve noticed in the next two streets from me, unused HPS and MV NEMA heads in some yards, along with an American Electric 165 bracket fixture. In another area there are a few abandoned GE 400 watt Powr/Brackets.

Some NEMA heads are in various states of disrepair, one is missing the entire bucket/reflector/lamp and photocell, another has the ballast, socket and ignitor hanging by wires, while another Mv one has a BT shaped lamp hanging down, seemingly the socket has come loose from the ballast.

It’s a shame to see all of these fixtures just left unused and unappreciated, wish they could be saved, but it’s nice to pass by and see them, since LED is really taking over now here. A few HPS and even one MV NEMA head lease lights still are on active duty here, for now. I’m hoping the MV one can last for a very long time yet, since MV doesn’t cycle, there isn’t much reason to report it by the homeowner. 

Israel. Here situation is a bit different both in terms of circuitry/technology and equipment ownership, but still may make sense for your question

The utility company (IEC) owns and maintains the electrical grid and provides the power, and local councils own and maintain the lighting. The lighting can be installed on the electrical grid poles, or on stand alone poles with feed from underground

The low voltage grid is powered from high power 3 phase transformers, typically 400kVA and up (even when they are powering much lower actual loads). In suburb-like areas with single family houses, such transformer powers a long stretch of low voltage grid, that can supply many 10's of houses

Lighting is virtually always group switched, there are no photocells on the lanterns (with the exception of some very new LED installs that need to be permanently powered for some "smart" system built into them to work, which more often than not results in dayburning lanterns, which negate any actual energy savings from said system...). The central control location may have a single photocell mounted on the cabinet, but sometimes they are only on a time switch (in the old days) and sometimes a wirelessly controlled switch (in some mew systems)

Consider a low voltage power line going along a suburb road. This power line carries typically 6 conductors, either as bare wires on insulators, or as a twisted bundle of insulated single wires called ABC. The conductors are :

Phase 1
Phase 2
Phase 3
Neutral
Lighting phase 1
Lighting phase 2

The Lighting Phases are switched on or off by a contactor, usually in a cabinet that stands on the ground near the beginning point of the grid (a cable on the nearest pole goes down to feed the cabinet, and anoter cable goes back up to connect the switched phases to the overhead). This cabinet contains a kWh meter, so the energy use of the lighting is metered and billed exactly (the council pays the utility company)

A house is connected to a phase (or all 3 phases) and neutral, either by an overhead service drop, or a cable going to the ground from the nearest pole and connected as from underground service (standard since 80s and later)

A lantern on the pole is connected to one lighting phase and the neutral. In some setups one lighting phase is powered part night and one full night, allowing lanterns to be connected in alternating order to one or the other. In the 70s and 80s lanterns with 2 lamps made appearance in towns, sometimes wired such that the 2 lamps in the same lantern are powered from the 2 different phases

(I am not sure why 2 lighting phases, but i guess the main reason is to keep an even number of wires, so they can be symmetrically arranged on 3 cross arms. I guess that the overhead line going from the control point might have different phases going in different directions, ie. if the grid goes from there in 3 directions, then they will get L1L2, L2L3, L3L1 as the 2 lighting phases, keeping the collective load more or less balanced)

When the utility company change a pole etc, they usually move the existing arm and lantern to the new pole and reconnect it, or if they deem it unnecessary, then remove it altogether, but looks like they still return it to the council. Once i asked for such lantern that was taken down and they said they must take it. (Interestingly, the other lantern on the same pole they did move to the new pole and connect, including a fully black leaked SON lamp in it. Many years later in an unrelated occasion, this lantern ended up in my collection, still with the same EOL lamp)

Lighting-only poles powered from underground, as well as the cable feeding them are fully council owned, so there the utility company is unrelated

@Cole D. - The utilities around here will remove them when the lease is not renewed. The only indication left is a cut power drop, pole tag, or a thru-bolt that was left in the pole. Most lease lights are installed on existing poles...not often to see a dedicated pole just for a luminaire.

Lights here are often either forgotten and left functioning forever or disconnected.


There is lots of examples of lights burning in the middle of fields for no reason around here. I assume the rental light book was lost at some point lol.

@Ash, yes usually they transfer the fixtures here as well, even if they aren’t used anymore. There is an OLD mercury  GE M400 at the Enterprise here (was an old gas station) that hasn’t worked in a few years, when the pole was replaced, they transferred it anyway.

@BT25, most of the ones here aren’t installed on a separate pole either, my next door neighbor used to have two HPS NEMA heads requested by a previous owner. When they stoped paying, the PC were removed. When a new house was built, they removed the one from the transformer pole to install an underground feed. The other fixture was on a separate pole, and remained for a few more years until the current owner had a steel garage built in that spot, so the power company removed it and the pole. I was at work when the work was performed, I wish I’d been home since maybe I could’ve gotten the fixture and arm, being they weren’t going to be used anymore.

@HomeBrewLamps, I’ve seen that here too actually. There was a GE M250R2 at a house that was demolished, but the fixture was never disconnected and still had power. Although the HPS lamp started cycling. I doubt they ever disconnected it, but I haven’t been by that way after dark lately.