- Over the next decade, 89% of street lights will be LED
- Indian city plans streetlights with distress button
- Kingston, Jamaica, to become Caribbean’s first smart city
Investment in LED street lighting will be $57 billion between 2016 and 2026, Northeast Group forecasts. Growth is fueled by the replacement of traditional street lights with LED bulbs.
LEDs are preferred by many communities because of their cost savings. They have longer lifetimes, require less maintenance and use less energy.
Growth also is fueled by the introduction of smart streetlights, a network of streetlights that communicate with one another. These networks require little maintenance and the bulbs can be dimmed electronically. In many parts of China, the United Kingdom and the United States, smart streetlights are commonplace.
The LED streetlight market is relatively young. Its greatest challenge is the higher upfront costs of LED lighting. To overcome this, the World Bank announced in 2014 it would create a $1 billion fund for LED lighting.
Nevertheless, by 2026, it is project that 89% of street lighting will be LED and 42% will be smart streetlight networks. The market will be valued at $69.5 billion by 2026.
Smart Streetlights with Distress Button
In India, the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation has proposed installing smart LED streetlights with a distress button citizens can use to signal for help when being robbed or kidnapped. When the distress button is pressed between 50 and 100 street lights in the area would blink, signaling someone is in trouble, and the police would be summoned.
Other features the city is proposing are an intelligent light monitoring system and the ability to dim lights between midnight and 4 am.
Officials listened to presentations from three smart streetlight companies. The companies promised Wi-Fi routers, air pollution monitors and energy saving features.
The smart lights would replace 52,000 existing street lightening.
Chandigarh Municipal Corporation is not the only municipality concerned with safety. Kingston, Jamaica, is solidifying plans that would make it the first smart city in the Caribbean.
As part of the plan, smart streetlights will be installed equipped with image sensors and closed circuit television designed as crime fighting tools.
The smart streetlights will have other benefits including measuring and reporting energy usage, automatically reporting light outages and reporting maintenance and repairs.
A total of 111,000 street lights will be installed as part of the plan. So far, 330 streetlights have been retrofitted. The plan will be completed by 2021.
Global LED and Smart Street Lighting Market
- There are 315 million streetlights worldwide. By 2026, that will increase to 359 million.
- In the next few years, LED streetlights are forecasted to reach cost parity with traditional streetlights.
- Smart streetlights integrate well into the concept of the “smart city”, where electricity and water meters, traffic lights, and parking meters are connected with communications networks.
- In 2012, Northeast Group surveyed more than 100 U.S. municipalities that were using LED streetlights. These early adopters overwhelmingly favored the technology.
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