Study Says Smart Streetlights Will Save Billions Each Year

There are more than 2,000 LED and smart streetlight projects underway globally right now. This trend is largely due to rapidly falling costs and recently understood benefits from changing programs, according to a new study published April 28 by Northeast Group, Global LED and Smart Street Lighting: Market Forecast (2015 – 2025).

“With LEDs approaching cost parity with legacy streetlights, their energy and maintenance savings make the business case a no-brainer,” said Ben Gardner, President of Northeast Group. “By 2025, LED and smart streetlights around the world will save 98,000 gigawatt hours annually, or $12.9 billion in electricity costs. Smart street lighting will also pave the way for additional 'smart city' applications such as smart parking meters, environmental sensors and video monitoring.”

Of the more than 2,000 current LED and smart streetlight projects across 90 countries, this study evaluated more than 800 and found that cities are stepping up the size of deployments. Madrid in the last year began the largest single-city project with a planned 225,000 streetlights. Los Angeles plans to network its 140,000 LED streetlights, and Florida Power & Light has plans to network 500,000 streetlights.

This changeover is the first step toward true smart cities where the grid will be monitored, but remotely and automated for all but the most critical tasks. If smart cities are to become the norm, infrastructure and smart grid technology will have to be developed and implemented first, and soon.

It’s good to see the industry taking steps in the right direction.