Opinions, think-pieces, articles and observations around smart cities and the future of urban living.
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.
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.
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.
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.
