Street lighting and the Internet of Things

Australian councils can leverage Internet of Things (IoT) technology to modernise critical infrastructure such as intelligent and adaptive street lighting, according to networking technologies company Silver Spring Networks.

The company showcased its vision for the future of smart city and smart energy infrastructure in Australia at the Australian Smart Lighting Summit held recently.

“By establishing an open, standards-based IP network underpinning multiple applications, from energy to public lighting to traffic light systems to disaster sensors, cities can leverage network economics to cost-effectively deploy new smart infrastructure services to their citizenry over time,” said CJ Boguszewski, Global Commercial Lead for Smart City Applications for Silver Spring.

In his presentation, ‘Street Lighting Controls: Why They’re Ready Today, Important for Tomorrow and Critical in Australia’, Boguszewski highlighted the IoT opportunities for Australian councils.

“With our smart energy networks deployed in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, the market has made strides in proving out the critical role technology plays in helping modernise its energy and municipal infrastructure. The next step is advancing to more sophisticated IoT applications, and intelligent street lights are often the on-ramp to smarter cities.”

Cities today in Australia are faced with costly, ageing infrastructure. Street lights, for example, can consume as much as 40% of a city’s energy budget. Smart public lighting networks can help drive reductions of more than 10% in street light energy consumption and can help lower maintenance costs by up to 30%. When combined with LEDs, Silver Spring’s Smart City Solution is said to help deliver up to 60% in energy savings over traditional high-pressure sodium street lights and help reduce maintenance costs by up to 35%.

Silver Spring’s Smart City Solution comprises its IPv6 wireless networking platform and management and control software optimised for smart city devices. In addition to smart street lighting, cities can leverage the open network platform for the deployment of additional smart city services over time, greatly lowering long-term costs and accelerating speed of deployment for these new services for their citizens.

Silver Spring’s networking platform has connected over two million homes and businesses in Australia to energy providers such as Citipower and PowerCor, Jemena, United Energy and Western Power, helping improve energy efficiency and to empower consumers to make smarter energy decisions. In New Zealand, Silver Spring has been selected by SmartCo, a consortium of electricity lines companies, to deploy an advanced smart grid network across New Zealand, and has already begun deployments with member company WEL Networks. In Asia, the Singapore Power Group is leveraging a countrywide IPv6 smart infrastructure networking platform from Silver Spring to allow eligible customers in Singapore to now choose from a variety of retail energy providers and purchase electricity at wholesale market prices.