Reducing Energy Consumption With Smart Street Lights

Installing Smart Street-lights system is the first important step towards establishing a smart City. A smart lamppost network constitutes the structural foundation required for an advanced control over illumination, security and other progressive functions in roads and various outdoor areas. The intelligent lighting system provides two-sided communication between light poles and a control center; each lamp post’s location is precisely defined by a GPS mapping system; light poles continuously transmit data to the control center, and controllers have the ability to manage maintenance and light performance for individual lamps through the computerized network. However, the first and most vital motive for installing these cutting edge systems is the substantial reduction of energy consumption, which is the most immediate and beneficial outcome.

Smart street-lighting systems bring the best results using high performance lamps such as LED semiconductor bulbs. Those kinds of economical bulbs have an extended lifespan and superb controllability over many different factors, but their primary merit is the high energy efficiency potential. Innovative street illumination systems save approximately 30% of the energy consumption, and may result in up to 80% energy saving, when used wisely together with LED lamps. Due to the fact, that approximately 40% of a city utility bill is consumed by street lamps, the energy saving technologies may dramatically change municipalities’ budget distribution.

The smart street-lights system enables timely responses to maintenance and environmental issues as well as an extraordinary monitoring of illumination performance. Each light pole transmits real-time data reports to the control center, consisting of the bulb and driving circuit status, performance details, lamp tilt etc. The precise information regarding energy consumption combined with other data, which is received from diverse optional sensors enables operators to analyze current and future scenarios, reach relevant conclusions, anticipate outages and failures and successfully carry out both long term and immediate solutions.

Smart networks are remotely controlled by a local concentrator that may fine-tune the lighting intensity, direction and color of any specific lamppost or of any defined light poles clusters according to specific circumstances. The facility managers may use intelligent automatic scheduling or modify the lightning values manually to suit the climate, sunlight, traffic density and other surrounding conditions that tend to change frequently.

One of the essential and most effective features applied in smart electricity systems is the dimming option. When used with highly performing luminous sources, the dimming prolongs the bulbs’ lifespan and dramatically decreases the energy consumption without compromising the vehicles and pedestrian safety.

The productivity of intelligent street-light controls is instantly reflected in lower electricity bills; however, the reduction of energy waste is also expressed in wider terms of ecological benefits. The radical decrease of energy consumption results in similar cuts of greenhouse gas emission and furthermore prevents construction of additional power stations around the world.

Energy efficacy is not the only advantage of smart street-lighting. Applying innovative technologies that allow real-time delivery of data and a remote control over illumination is translated into a considerable diminution of maintenance costs, avoiding light pollution and creating a safer environment for both humans and property.

Intelligent lighting systems form an extensible infrastructure. The smart grid may be used for managing supplemental sensors and components that promote a further reduction of energy waste. Extensions such as weather and pollution sensors, traffic signals, and special plugs for external use provide the controllers with an important data regarding the required lighting level.

Smart street-lights are, in fact, computerized networks that allow communication between illuminating sources and a control center. Conventional street-light’s management and maintenance cannot compete with the performance of an intelligent system. Humans cannot gather, process and analyze the same amount of data and surely not in a similar speed as computers do. The possibility of adjusting lighting consumption and performance to suit various factors results in a great efficacy and energy saving, which may be greatly enhanced by the use of efficient luminous sources that have compatible functionality.