Smart Lights – can street lamps be innovative?
Street lamps, or to put it in more technical terms – light fixtures, using LED technology are no longer an innovative solution today. One can even get lost in the maze of vendors and their offerings. Hence the question of space for innovation in this field.
The answer lies in the following aspects – passive energy, the way of managing and controlling the lamps, far-reaching automation and "intelligence" of the solutions used or, finally, ease of maintenance and safety which is a priority when it comes to public spaces.
It should be remembered that despite the lower energy consumption of LED luminaires, charges for their use can be much higher than those resulting directly from consumption. This is affected by the reactive energy generated by the power supply of the luminaire. Energy suppliers may charge penalties in accordance with applicable regulations, namely the Regulation of the Minister of Economy of 18 August 2011. on the detailed rules of shaping and calculating the tariffs and settlements in the trade in electricity and the Regulation of 12 April 2012 amending it. Therefore, it is worth checking how the planned investment in LED street lighting looks like from this side – will it actually bring benefits, or is there an unpleasant surprise waiting for us in connection with it.
Orange Polska – lamps manufactured in our country in cooperation with Biosolution (and Orange Fab – Quantron winner) – guarantee the absence of any charges for reactive energy, also in the case of power reduction, and do not require the use of expensive and unreliable reactive power compensators.
The smart lighting system, however, is just one part of a larger whole offered by the IoT API platform developed by Orange. In the case of street lamps, it gives the possibility to efficiently manage the entire system. Each luminaire is equipped with a communication module – thanks to which it can be switched on via SMS containing an appropriate command. In the event of damage, the lighting system manager will be automatically notified, and if the luminaire is stolen, a GPS will help locate it. Such a lamp automatically monitors a number of parameters and the system generates alerts, which reduces repair time and simplifies the maintenance of the entire light infrastructure.
Author
Piotr Kozlowski, expert from Orange Polska. Senior solutions manager. M2M and IoT Development and Management Team
