Echelon and Streetlight.Vision Team to Reduce Energy Usage in Streetlight Systems
Echelon Corp. (NASDAQ:ELON) and Streetlight.Vision have announced a collaboration to reduce energy and maintenance costs for streetlight systems in Europe, the Americas and Asia. The intelligent, networked streetlight solution utilizes Echelon's technology and Streetlight.Vision's software to manage, monitor and remotely control streetlights. The solution will be implemented by AMEC SPIE, one of the largest providers of streetlight related services to municipalities across Europe. AMEC SPIE will initially target the French streetlight market with the solution – a market of over 8 million streetlights.
Environmental regulations are becoming increasingly strict in Europe, calling for the reduction of energy usage and carbon dioxide emissions. By utilizing the streetlight solution from Echelon and Streetlight.Vision, cities can expect to reduce energy usage by up to 40 percent and, for the average French city, the annual carbon dioxide reduction could be up to 100 tons.
Street lighting systems are expensive for cities to maintain due to the size of the system. By integrating streetlight systems with control technology, the resulting "intelligent" system can be remotely monitored and controlled, which can significantly reduce maintenance costs and down time for failed lamps while creating a positive impact on citizens' security. Simply dimming the streetlights to a lower light level in the middle of the night when there is less traffic substantially reduces the amount of energy used, and lowers energy costs. These savings allow a city to better utilize its operating budget, freeing more funds to be spent on other programs and services where impact for its citizens is highest, thereby helping cities achieve a more environmentally and economically friendly profile.
The intelligent streetlight solution calls for the replacement of older, inefficient mechanical ballasts with LonWorks-enabled electronic ballasts, such as the smart ballast from SELC Ireland Limited that includes Echelon's power line communication technology. Data from the streetlights will be collected by Echelon's i.LON 100 Internet Servers, which manage the streetlights and use a standard wireless data network to communicate with a city's monitoring center equipped with the Streetlight.Vision's monitoring Web portal software.
The Streetlight.Vision software aggregates millions of data from the streetlights and other devices and provides the end user with a comprehensive package of Web streetlight management applications, including energy consumption analysis, automatic failure identification, preventive maintenance and remote testing and monitoring of streetlights on city maps. The Streetlight.Vision software is also designed to provide aggregated information to existing applications such as city call centers and geographical information systems (GIS). This high level of control dramatically reduces maintenance and energy costs, and a similar installation in the City of Oslo is expected to reduce energy usage by 50 percent.
