It may be tough to bring down the power bills at the Brooke-Alvinston-Inwood Arena.

For the first time, the municipality had a bill of over $11,000 in a month. Public Works Manager Randy Hills says it is a reflection of the Christmas time use of the arena and community centre and the rising cost of power.

The municipality had an energy audit completed, hoping to invest some money through energy conservation projects.

But Hills says the investment would not pay – at least not for a long time. Hills says the payback on replacing all the lights with energy-efficient LEDs would take 11 years. “There is another light…that is coming out that is lower in wattage,” he recently told council. “It’s supposed to drop the payback to six or seven years.”

“For the ice surface, for example, the lights are only on 2,000 hours a year, that’s just not enough to get a fast payback.”

Hills says the town staff is hoping to find some better options saying they need to find an alternative to the current state of affairs.

“The last hydro bills were pretty high…and I don’t see them going down much.”