LED Street lights an easy sell – What about smart ones?
LED Street lights have been evaluated ad nauseam, especially by suppliers eager to help municipalities replace their halogen or mercury-based street lighting systems. There is little, other than upfront cost, to deter government buyers from replacing the higher maintenance and shorter lifetime existing lighting with more efficient and longer lifetime LED lighting. There are questions about light pollution and color choice from consumers, but the data (as long as actual lighting meets manufacturer specs) is pretty uniform and continues to improve as better luminaire designs reduce glare and other issues. That said, there isn’t a day when we don’t see headlines about IoT or connected appliances, lighting, doorbells, or security systems, let much of the LED street lighting that is going into communities do not share information or even generate information. Given the bean-counter approach that many local governments have to public works projects, one would think that they would be interested in such functions to make ongoing improvements to street lighting generally, or at least to protect their jobs.
What holds back the idea of ‘smart’ streetlights, especially as they are in a unique position to count or identify consumers, generating trend information for managers, or less sophisticatedly reporting maintenance issues? Networks and power. We believe smart street lighting has a share under 5%, as local and even city sized programs are unfamiliar with the network technology needed to connect and collect data from smart street lights, along with concerns (incorrectly so) about the extra energy needed to power street lamp data collection. In most cases, the extra power needed for sensors and data transmission is easily offset by the application of such data to make the street lights operate more efficiently. Remote location streetlights can be dimmed when there is no traffic and returned to full brightness when approached by a moving vehicle or pedestrian, or daylight sensors can adjust brightness according to actual conditions, rather than by a 24 hour clock.
Networks for data collection however can be a hindrance to local governments, who are not used to such tools and usually don’t have the expertise to maintain such networks once they are installed by providers. Then there is the data, and the need to collect, store, and interpret information that can be as diverse as weather, traffic, breakdown detection, and essentially any other sensor information that is included in the luminaires. Small towns are not used to big data, and the cost of the network, data storage, and the analysts needed to read and gain insight from such vast quantities of information likely look overwhelming to local government officials, many of whom have no experience in such matters.
But, as the world of IoT continues to expand, the cost/unit for data collection will continue to decline, and point-to-point wireless networking will become less costly, leaving ‘talent’ the only stumbling block to the adoption of smart street lighting. Taiwan based Lite-On Technology (2301.TT), the market share leader in Taiwan and North America, who ships ~500,000 street lights/year, is expecting to see a 5x increase in the number of smart street lights it ships this year, amounting to ~5% of overall shipments. A recent Lite-On program in Taoyuan City (Taiwan) that will replace 21,400 mercury vapor streetlights with LED lighting, will be oriented toward a 50% smart street light goal, and other cities in Taiwan have similar programs that specify smart streetlights for certain locations, but a generational change is still necessary for government officials to see past the cost of setting up the systems necessary to collect and use the data. Gen X officials are probably too old to feel that networks and data are part of life generally, but millennials will not think twice about the concept, especially if you like them on Facebook (FB), so vote young for better street lighting, and make sure not to toss anything from your vehicle…they can see you now…
What holds back the idea of ‘smart’ streetlights, especially as they are in a unique position to count or identify consumers, generating trend information for managers, or less sophisticatedly reporting maintenance issues? Networks and power. We believe smart street lighting has a share under 5%, as local and even city sized programs are unfamiliar with the network technology needed to connect and collect data from smart street lights, along with concerns (incorrectly so) about the extra energy needed to power street lamp data collection. In most cases, the extra power needed for sensors and data transmission is easily offset by the application of such data to make the street lights operate more efficiently. Remote location streetlights can be dimmed when there is no traffic and returned to full brightness when approached by a moving vehicle or pedestrian, or daylight sensors can adjust brightness according to actual conditions, rather than by a 24 hour clock.
Networks for data collection however can be a hindrance to local governments, who are not used to such tools and usually don’t have the expertise to maintain such networks once they are installed by providers. Then there is the data, and the need to collect, store, and interpret information that can be as diverse as weather, traffic, breakdown detection, and essentially any other sensor information that is included in the luminaires. Small towns are not used to big data, and the cost of the network, data storage, and the analysts needed to read and gain insight from such vast quantities of information likely look overwhelming to local government officials, many of whom have no experience in such matters.
But, as the world of IoT continues to expand, the cost/unit for data collection will continue to decline, and point-to-point wireless networking will become less costly, leaving ‘talent’ the only stumbling block to the adoption of smart street lighting. Taiwan based Lite-On Technology (2301.TT), the market share leader in Taiwan and North America, who ships ~500,000 street lights/year, is expecting to see a 5x increase in the number of smart street lights it ships this year, amounting to ~5% of overall shipments. A recent Lite-On program in Taoyuan City (Taiwan) that will replace 21,400 mercury vapor streetlights with LED lighting, will be oriented toward a 50% smart street light goal, and other cities in Taiwan have similar programs that specify smart streetlights for certain locations, but a generational change is still necessary for government officials to see past the cost of setting up the systems necessary to collect and use the data. Gen X officials are probably too old to feel that networks and data are part of life generally, but millennials will not think twice about the concept, especially if you like them on Facebook (FB), so vote young for better street lighting, and make sure not to toss anything from your vehicle…they can see you now…
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