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Lighting for cities is expensive, with energy and maintenance costs accounting for approximately 40 percent of its budgets. In New York City, lighting uses approximately 295.5 million kWh, which costs $50 million a year for electricity alone. Transitioning to smart LED networks represents a tremendous opportunity for municipalities to not only save a substantial amount of money on energy and maintenance costs, but also become a smart city and offer the platforms to create opportunities for effective and productive engagement with its citizens, businesses, and visitors. All this I learned while editing Alex Chatha’s report titled Smart Lighting Systems Global Market 2017-2022.
Intelligent LED Streetlighting
His research reveals that intelligent LED streetlighting networks are proving to be a transformational force in smart cities, providing an affordable option for cities to deploy an IoT platform that is delivering quantifiable results. Streetlighting with controls can utilize time-based scheduling or even daylighting to adjust dimming levels and achieve some energy savings. On the other hand, intelligent LED streetlighting networks featuring embedded software, sensors, and microprocessor-based controllers capable of edge computing and data gathering offer digital capabilities that go well beyond traditional lighting controls. The power of these systems is magnified when deployed with a multitude of sensing devices and intelligent cameras utilizing smart algorithms. These systems are providing smart city operators and managers access to real-time awareness using dashboards and location-based intelligence.
In 2015, Los Angeles became the first city in the world to deploy 100 Philips SmartPoles, which are connected LED streetlights with integrated 4G LTE wireless telecommunications technology by Ericsson. This collaboration between Philips and Ericsson helps deliver the benefits of smart streetlighting networks while also hoping to overcome existing and developing data transfer hurdles as cities embark on the journey toward digitalization. This is the scenario in North America, but let us examine LED streetlighting in the India market too.
Smart Lighting Systems in the India Market
35 million streetlights light up India’s roads. Various sources place the demand of electricity for these streetlights between 20 to 40 percent of the energy produced in India. This sector faces multiple problems, such as:
• Faulty lines with no maintenance of database
• Theft and wastage
In such a scenario, an IoT-based solution would be effective to keep track of which streetlights are working and how much energy is being consumed. As mentioned in Alex Chatha’s report, the solution should have either phase wise control or individual light wise control in order to provide actionable data.
According to industry watchers, the smart streetlighting market in India is expected to grow at an annual rate of 42.2 per cent to reach $1.8 billion by 2022 as adoption of LED and solar powered systems rise in the country. India has 35 million street lights, which generate a total demand of 3,400 MW. With LED, this can be brought down to 1,400 MW, saving 9000 million kWh of electricity annually, worth over $850 million in the process. Under the government’s Street Lighting National Programme (SLNP), over 2 million conventional street lights have been replaced with LED street lights across the country. Mass procurement has brought down the price of LED streetlights substantially.
Smart Connected Lights for Smart Cities
Global players, such as Philips, Wipro, Havells, Crompton, and other new players, are investing to expand their LED portfolios. According to Philips Lighting India, smart connected lights will become one of the largest internet of things (IoT) devices in the next five to 10 years. Wipro Lighting recently launched its Internet of Lighting (IoL) solutions for indoor and outdoor lighting at its signature event “Light Show 2018” in Pune, India. iBahn Illumination has launched its smart LEDs based on Bluetooth mesh technology in Hyderabad and plans to roll out its offerings pan India in a phased manner.
In the just published ARC report on smart lighting systems, Alex Chatha explains how smart and connected digital lighting based solutions are the way forward as they will bring in intelligence and functionality into lighting systems, enhance user experience, reduce wastage, and deliver desired outcomes for customers.