There may be a lot of technologies far sexier than networked street lights, but two developments in the past month illustrate just how integral they may be to creating more energy-efficient, connected cities.
The first centers on Miami-Dade County, where Florida Power & Light Co. (FPL) is planning the biggest-ever smart street light deployment in North America: 75,000 lights across the region. "Wait a minute," I hear you asking, "isn't the LED conversion installation completed last year in Los Angeles bigger than this one?" By sheer numbers, yes, the Miami project is about half the size of the one on the West Coast. And the primary focus is different: its lights are wirelessly connected with technology from Silver Spring Networks. That means they can be controlled and serviced more closely (and quickly) from a remote location.
"With this new street light technology, we expect to leverage our smart grid investments and ensure greater efficiencies and reliability for our street light and existing smart grid networks," said Eric Silagy, president of FPL, when the project was announced in early March.
No one is making any predictions about how much power will be saved in Miami-Dade county, but Silver Spring's project in Paris (announced last year) is expected to cut the French city's power consumption by approximately 30% over the next 10 years. Just as important, that retrofit in lays the foundation for advanced traffic controls applications.
Indeed, as I've previously written, the impact of LED lighting retrofits will reach far beyond simply cutting energy and maintenance costs for lights that make public places brighter and safer. While this one isn't focused on LEDs, it's focused on smart light infrastructure. Which brings us to the second development worth close attention as more cities invest in technology to make citizen services more efficient.
This one comes in the form of a new partnership between mobile company
Discussing the new relationship in a statement, Philips President and CEO Frans van Houten said:
"This new connected LED street lighting model is another example of us bringing the Internet of Things to life and demonstrates the capabilities of light beyond illumination. We are offering lighting as a service that scales with a city's needs and enables city officials to offer their citizens a more connected, energy efficient and safer urban environment, while preserving existing budgets and resources to improve the livability of their city."
The Zero site solution combines a micro Radio Remote Unit (mRRU) with inbuilt or external antennas on the top of the poles (ranging from 8 meters to 12 meters high) and power and battery equipment, cooling technology and remote site controllers, which is buried underground. Depending on the lights chosen, the operational savings for power range from 50% - 70%, according to the companies.
