Opinions, think-pieces, articles and observations around smart cities and the future of urban living.
As urban landscapes expand and technology advances, the brilliance of our night skies is steadily being overshadowed by artificial light. The enchanting spectacle of a starlit sky is fading from view, obscured by the pervasive glow of urban development. The Dark Skies initiative stands as a beacon of hope, striving to safeguard this celestial heritage for future generations.
Discover Danny’s journey at Telensa, where he transitions from an electrician to a project management apprentice. Balancing hands-on projects and studies, his experience showcases Telensa’s dedication to nurturing talent and promoting a supportive work environment.
The Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, made a rare and spectacular appearance across the UK last Friday and Saturday, enchanting sky watchers nationwide. This event, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the extreme geomagnetic storm of 2003, brought vibrant auroras to areas far beyond their usual northern limits. Such breathtaking sights are becoming more frequent as we approach the solar maximum of the Sun's 11-year cycle, with increased sunspot activity leading to more intense auroras.
Welcome to a glimpse into Telensa’s world, where apprentices like Katie are not just starting their careers but are also paving the way for innovative solutions in the tech industry. This year, Katie began her academic journey in Digital and Technology Solutions while actively contributing to our operations team.
Customer Challenge
Switching to LED lighting can have a major impact and the time to act is now
This article was first published in the ILP's Lighting Journal. Offering CMS, or lighting control, as a managed service could be one way for local authorities to reconnect with their tenant businesses and smaller villages, as well as potentially providing valuable revenue in a challenging economic environment.
Smart lighting is making a huge difference to the energy budget of local authorities. Dr Jon Lewis sets out the next set of cloud-based applications which will have an equally positive impact on city operations. This article was first published in the ILP's Lighting Journal.
This article was first published in the ILP's Lighting Journal. In the first of a two-part series about smart streetlights and CMS, David Orchard looks back over the past decade of CMS in the UK and what can be learnt from this about changing attitudes and adoption strategies by local authorities
With suitable utility tariffs those organisations doing the right thing by adopting greener streetlight technologies would be rewarded with lower energy bills.
We have all got a view of what the smart city of the future looks like, with integrated multi-modal transport, predictive intervention to issues before they occur and happy citizens satisfied with the way their local authorities use their taxes.
Smart streetlights create numerous benefits: enabling users to audit progress in their switch to LED lighting, reduce energy usage, reduce carbon footprint, remotely diagnose faults, better maintenance efficiency and many more. The initial up-front cost of smart street lighting requires a rapid return-on-investment (ROI) to justify the capital expense. The good news is, smart streetlight ROI is fast if users are able to financially benefit from the energy reduction achieved using the enhanced dimming and trimming profiles that these systems provide.
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In recent years innovation in the smart city tech landscape has enabled cities to deploy established pilots. But these pilots have stayed just that, pilots, as the cost and complexity of having numerous vertically integrated applications has hindered cash-strapped local authorities. As such, AI-driven solutions have evolved to enable data collection on a whole new level. This year's hot topic goes beyond data collection to the realms of data ownership and data trust. How can cities use data collected from smart city sensors to become more sustainable, all while retaining transparency with citizens? Here is our list of ten events to look out for, touching on the latest in technology developments and policy-making.
Last week at the Abu Dhabi Municipal Lighting conference, Telensa co-founder Will Gibson presented on the potential for wireless outdoor lighting controls to act as the foundation for a range of smart city applications.
Writing in Forbes, Yung Wu reports that Sidewalk Labs’ initial plans for a smart city development in Toronto received significant push-back due to issues including data privacy and community engagement.
Telensa PLANet smart street lighting is one of the few smart city applications deployed at mass scale. At Distributech, we’ll be at the Microsoft booth #837 showcasing how electric utilities and electricity providers can build on the business case for smart street lighting, using a platform approach to add other smart city applications and AI-driven data insights.
Dr Jon Lewis is our Chief Strategy Officer. His background spans technology innovation and product delivery across a wide set of industries from mobile communications to healthcare. At Telensa Jon has pioneered several smart city applications, including smart parking and smart waste management. More recently he has led the Urban Data Project - a new approach to the collection and responsible use of data by cities, transforming trust and privacy using artificial intelligence and machine learning.
We think so! That’s why we’ve launched Urban IQ.
This infographic covers the main benefits of Telensa and Eaton Lighting alliance to utilities, cities, and Departments of Transport across North America.
Telensa and Eaton Lighting have worked together for a decade in projects covering hundreds of thousands of streetlights. Last month we made our alliance official by signing an agreement in September at the IES Street and Area Lighting Conference in San Diego. The purpose of the alliance is to work more closely together to deliver connected solutions for outdoor LED lighting and related smart city applications - to utilities, cities and Departments of Transport across North America.
At Smart City Expo this year, Telensa and Microsoft demonstrated the power of a platform approach to smart city applications and data insights.
Over the past couple of months Telensa has been hosting Smart City Forums, inviting local authorities and others in the smart lighting industry to discuss the evolution and future of smart cities. It’s been a pleasure to see new and familiar faces and we’re thankful to all those that contributed and participated. Below is a recap of the forum held at Sony’s UK Tech Centre in Pencoed, Wales, where all Telensa products are made:
Telensa recently supported key partner Kainos in its design week programme with Aston University. The theme this year was about exploring new solutions made possible by a connected, intelligent urban environment.
Dr Jon Lewis is our Chief Strategy Officer. His background spans technology innovation and product delivery across a wide set of industries from mobile communications to healthcare. At Telensa Jon has pioneered several smart city applications, including smart parking and smart waste management. More recently he has led the Urban Data Project - a new approach to the collection and responsible use of data by cities, transforming trust and privacy using artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The infographic below contains the three biggest takeaways for a successful smart street lighting update from Navigant's case study 'The Utility Case for Smart Street Lighting'. Read more about benefits of centrally controlled street lights for utilities.
How cities can act to turn the fear of smart technologies into hope for a better future
The road to becoming a smart city requires cities to pick up new skills. Cities need to develop new infrastructure and new policies for gathering and utilising data.
A third of world’s roads are still lit with 1960s technology, and the energy consumption of old street lights can amount to 40% of city’s energy consumption. The wave of affordable LED technology has helped the energy reduction and many cities have taken the savings to the next level with networked lights and central management system (CMS).
Hear from Keith Henry at Power & Utilities Australia.
Data has the potential to transform how cities operate, enabling more informed decision making to operate more efficiently and provide better services.
Most smart city applications are never deployed across whole cities and regions. Instead they stay as perennial small-scale pilots. Why?
Finding how to close the digital gap and move towards the reality of a smart city can be tough. Let’s discuss how this journey can be started with connected street lighting.
The future of street lighting is here
All this talk of smart cities. Will they actually benefit urban citizens? The answer is yes. In fact a recent study by Juniper Research estimates that smart cities have the potential to save their citizens 125 hours per year. Here are nine smart city applications that could make a difference.
The topic of smart cities is filling increasing column inches across tech media. But some of the terminology can be complex. To appropriately understand the urban environments of tomorrow, it’s necessary to grasp the lexicon that comes with them.
It’s not just the city that can benefit from smart, connected technologies. A number of applications are being rolled out that could transform the way we perceive the rural and suburban environment.
Our Marketing VP, Keith Day was recently interviewed by CNN Create at Mobile World Congress. Find out what Keith had to say about Telensa and Smart cities during the event.
[Excerpt from a Smart Cities Dive article at www.smartcitiesdive.com]
Writing in the Washington Post, Tara Bahrampour reports that in the US, population growth in cities has fallen behind the suburban growth for the first time in six years.
