Smart streetlights could save cities $15bn

Smart connected streetlighting deployments will deliver $15 billion in cumulative energy savings for cities by 2023, according to a report by Juniper Research. These savings will be achieved by converting lamps to energy-efficient LEDs and adding connectivity to monitor and control the status of each individual light.

The market for connected streetlights is set to grow on average by 42% per year through to this time, the research firm said, with shipments expected to reach nearly 70 million units.

Growing adoption of open platforms is meanwhile expected to enable smart streetlighting to act as a major hub point for additional smart city services, such as public safety and smart transport.

Another factor driving growth of the emerging segment is the fact that many cities are using streetlighting platforms as an entry point for their foray into smart city solutions.

“The cost savings enabled by smart streetlighting mean that many cities will look to this as a first-stage smart city project,” research author Steffen Sorrell explained.

“Choosing an open platform will be key here, as additional services can be launched from the same point, while simultaneously driving up third-party vendor competition.”

In Australia, smart streetlighting projects have been launched by cities including Canberra, Newcastle, Darwin, the Northern Territory’s Palmerston and Moreton Bay in Queensland.

To further reduce energy costs and enhance public safety, Australian cities are trialling applications such as the ability to remotely or dynamically adjust lighting based on weather conditions, the presence of pedestrians or during emergencies.

Juniper Research also used the research to rank the industry’s top smart city platform vendors by capabilities. Siemens topped the list, followed by Oracle, IBM, Huawei and Itron.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Giorgio Pulcini

Originally published here.