Smart Street lights

Intelligent street lighting refers to public street lighting that adapts to movement by
pedestrians, cyclists and cars. Intelligent street lighting, also referred to as adaptive street
lighting, dims when no activity is detected, but brightens when movement is detected.

Smart lighting solution will minimize disruption in service, allow prompt servicing and
centralized governance and orchestration of street lights that are spread across cities.
Enterprises can benefit from savings in electricity bills, civic authorities will benefit from
the ability to implement and manage street lighting in a much more efficient and cost-
effective way.

Need for smart street lights

Street lighting is a fundamental aspect of security systems in homes, industrial facilities,

and public places. To detect parking lot occupancy in outdoor environments, street light
control plays a crucial role in smart surveillance applications that can perform robustly in
extreme surveillance environments.

Street lighting provides a number of important benefits. It can be used to promote

security in urban areas and to increase the quality of life by artificially extending the
hours in which it is light so that activity can take place. Street lighting also improves
safety for drivers, riders, and pedestrians.

Technology used in street lights

A smart street light system incorporates a cluster of streetlight lamps that can
communicate with each other and provide lighting data to a local concentrator. The
concentrator manages and transmits the relevant data to a secure server that captures the
data and presents it in a web-browser dashboard.
A smart street lighting system also incorporates two-way communication which is the
icing to the systems’ cake. It allows facility managers to remotely control street lights
while keeping track of electrical power consumption in the lamps and in the driving
circuits. Monitored street light networks help reduce maintenance costs as each and every
lamp has a unique ID and can be pinpointed. The lamp status is monitored, therefore, if a
street lamp happens to break, fall, or malfunction in any way, efficient, cost-effective and
timely maintenance can be scheduled.

Even more impressively, if the night is brightly moon lit, for example, smart street
lighting also assures reduced energy use by dimming or brightening the lights remotely.
This can be done according to weather conditions as well, like fog or rain. An efficient
collection of data is guaranteed as well, which city planners can use to expand light
systems as their cities grow.

The basic component of a smart street lighting system is the intelligent lamppost, which
is made of the three following components:

1. LED or HID lamps with the highest efficiency.

2. IoT-based communication to create digitally monitored, secure, and reliable
network.
3. Addition of various smart sensors to monitor weather conditions, lamppost
inclination, air pollution, and more.
LED/HID lamps – Intelligent street lighting has to assure specific values
of luminance, dimness, uniformity, and glare according to the road type in
order to guarantee maximum visual safety to drivers and pedestrians. For
this purpose, high performance luminous sources, such as High Intensity
Discharge lamps and LEDs lamps, are used. These efficient lighting
products also have increased lamp lifetimes and decreased energy
consumption compared to traditional lights. The true intelligence of these
lamp solutions is based on a digital approach where a microcontroller
handles all the functions needed to have an effective and well-functioning
lamp, while at the same time, managing all the data for implementing a
smart street lighting network.

IoT-based communication – Networked street lighting systems can be managed through

several proven communication standards. The communication is bi-directional, and the
monitored system can send and receive information and commands to and from the lamp.
The way a facility manager decides on, for example, how much to dim a lamp, depends
on an abundance of information such as, weather conditions, lamp inclination, whether
there are people in the near vicinity or not, road conditions, time of day, and more. This
information can be collected on a cluster basis and sent to a central service center, where
the data is monitored and actions are taken.

Smart Sensors – Smart sensors can be used to detect real-time changes in information
such as lamp inclination, weather conditions, air pollution, availability of natural light
and more. This information can enhance road safety and reduce costs in maintenance.

Case study

Nagpur

Research paper - Solar Energy Availability and Utilization in Nagpur,

Maharashtra, India

Bhojraj N. Kale, Dr. S.V. Prayagi,M.P.Nimkar

Asst. Prof., Head of Department, Asst. Prof.

Dept. of Mechanical Engg. , DBACER, Nagpur-440110, PIET, Nagpur-440110

In India, local governments face great challenges in providing adequate utility services to
their populations. Unstable energy supply and the increasing energy demands of a rapidly
growing population can often lead to a weak electricity grid. As a result, most cities and
towns are facing

severe electricity shortages. Municipal corporations can ameliorate these strains through
targeted interventions to reduce energy consumption from municipal operations in street
lighting and water supply. The local government (the Nagpur Municipal Corporation -
NMC) consumes energy in

operations such as water treatment and supply, sewage treatment and pumping, street
lighting, transportation and hot mix asphalt plants (diesel operated), as well as in its own
buildings. Nagpur is renowned as the first model Solar City in India. In 2007, the local
government set renewable energy and energy efficiency targets for 2012: a 3% reduction
in conventional energy consumption across the city and a 20% reduction in conventional
energy consumption in municipal operations and facilities (with 2005 as the baseline
year). The focus of the activities is on the promotion of renewable energy applications
with the goal of meeting 10% of the city’s primary energy consumption with renewable
energy sources.

Nagpur greenhouse gas emissions Emissions from Municipal Operations

Table 1: Performance of solar public lighting and energy

 efficiency measures in Nagpur between 2006-2007

Consuming more than 22 gigawatt hour of electricity, street lighting represented the
second highest source of electricity consumption for local government operations in
2005-2006 (37% of the total). The initiated renewable energy policies and programmes
provided an opportunity to reduce electricity consumption, while increasing the
availability of street lighting. Between 2006 and 2007, NMC installed PV powered
streetlights across the city following a lifecycle cost-benefit analysis. Solar lights and
electric efficiency light bulbs were tested and compared against each other in different
parts of the city. Although the implementation costs were found to be higher for solar
lights than for electric efficiency lighting systems, as a whole, the benefits of solar lights
outweighed those for electric efficiency lights. The factors that encouraged Nagpur
Municipal Corporation to select solar lighting included:
  Compared to other Indian cities, Nagpur is relatively affluent in solar radiation,
with more than 300 sunny days a year.
 NMC received additional funds from MNRE (INR 95 million, almost USD 1.8
million) for promoting renewable energy in the city.

CONCLUSION

Different solutions tailored to local resources and conditions Local governments’ choices
in their public lighting installations are based on the pre-existing regulatory framework,
available technology and infrastructure, and the initial installation costs and available
funds. Each city needs

to determine the most suitable technological and economic solution for street lighting
within its policy, resource and energy context. In certain cities, this process could lead to
Electric efficiency lighting combined with renewable energy. The benefits of this strategy
can be in terms of cost and a quicker payback for local governments with existing
infrastructure and renewable energy electricity supply. In cities where a pre-existing grid
is absent or energy supply is not secure, the assessment may conclude, for example, that
installing new stand-alone renewable energy sourced public lighting systems, which may
or may not be connected to a grid, is cost-effective.

Solar Street Light in Nagpur Lighting Arrangement with 50 Watt Sodium Vapor
Lamps
Bhopal https://smartbhopal.city/smart-pole-and-intelligent-street-light-project

Bhopal has launched first of its kind public private partnership (PPP) based smart poles
and intelligent street lights project in India under the Smart Cities Mission. The project is
innovatively structured in such a manner that it delivers bundled smart services to
citizens and maximum values for money to the city authority.

There are two parallel part of this project:

1. Smart pole installation across the city: 400 Smart pole to be installed

2. LED street light installation: 20,000 LED street lights to be installed by replacing
the conventional sodium lamps and mercury lamps.

1. Smart Pole:

Smart Pole offers multiple services to the city residents. The integral parts of the smart
pole are as below:

 Smart pole has telecom tower infrastructure to match with city aesthetic and ready
to accommodate upcoming technology as 4G and 5G

 Energy efficient and remotely controllable LED Street Lights

 Wi-Fi hotspot services for the city

 Surveillance cameras for safety and parking violation detection

 Environmental Sensors to monitor Air quality, temperature and humidity

 Electric Vehicle charging points to promote use of electric vehicles in the city

 Mobile based application with functionality of SoS

 Centralizes Command and Control centre for monitoring the implementation of

smart solutions.

 Optical fiber for better bandwidth to the Wi-Fi users/providing backhaul to

telecom operators.
Benefits of Smart Pole:

 Unlike the conventional telecom tower, Smart pole looks good and matches with
city infrastructure. It has the telecom power infrastructure in built to facilitate
telecom operators to place their equipment

 Smart pole has Li- ion batteries to eliminate Diesel generator as secondary power
source. Li-ion battery provides the back up during electricity outage

 Implementation of LED Street lights help to improve the quality of life of city
residents by improving the city lighting.

 Wi-Fi connectivity at 100 Hot Spots locations where city resident foot fall is
increasing. It provides free Wi Fi for defined time periods to the registered users.

 Optical fiber networks across the city ensures robust connectivity and enable the
city to accommodate future technologies. It will also help to establish connectivity
between Government departments, City infrastructure and Command & Control
Center.

 Camera surveillance ensures the safety, security and parking management in the
city.

 Charging facility for electric vehicles through EV Charging Points will encourage
the use on electric vehicle which will help to reduce carbon foot print

 Digital advertising panels across the city through smart bill boards will keep the
city residents updated with city information and provide the platform to the
corporates for promotion.

 SOS application for emergency, distress, citizen’s response system will facilitate
the city residents with quick response in case of emergency.

 Mobile application for citizen services will help the citizens to use the
government service through smart phone.
2. LED Street Lights:
Smart pole project is planned for 400 poles to be installed in the city to cover the entire
city area and in parallel to this 20000 LED street lights to be installed which will replace
the conventional street lighting. The benefits of replacing conventional lighting with LED
street lights are as below:

 LEDs have extremely long lives compared to conventional lamps.

 LED luminaries don't have filaments that can quickly burn out and they don't
contain toxic chemicals like mercury, unlike traditional high-pressure sodium
lamps or mercury-vapor lamps.

 LED luminaries can last 70,000 hours approx., also have reduced maintenance
costs because of their long lives.

 LED luminaries produce less heat than other bulbs. As it provides more lumens
per watt than conventional lamps

 LEDs are suitable for places where replacing light bulbs is expensive,
inconvenient or otherwise difficult.

 LEDs are highly energy efficient. While compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs)
recently have been touted as the standard in green lighting, LEDs actually have
double their energy efficiency

 LED use 15 percent of the energy of an incandescent bulb while generating more
light per watt. LEDs produce approx 80 lumens per watt, traditional streetlights
can only muster 58 lumens per watt

 Energy efficient LED helps to reduce carbon emission.

Additional key financial benefits of this projects are:

 Better governance and coordination through centralized command and control

center

 Zero capital investment for Smart Street Lights

  Zero operation and maintenance cost for 15 years

 Leveraging investment of Rs. 600 corers for city infrastructure

 Annual premium on revenue sharing model

 Better and smart services to citizens

Challenges faced during implementation and solution to overcome:

1. The biggest challenge is to gather the data of existing LED lights, Pole and feeder
panel status. As the city area is big and multiple kind of street light were installed
previously, the survey of the existing setup with lighting requirement was a
difficult task.
BSCDCL has appointed an external agency to do the complete survey of LED
street light project to gather the information about the lighting requirement and
existing set up. On the other hand, the concessionaire appointed for the
installation of LED light has also performed a survey to provide the right solution.
Concessionaire has done the survey of existing street light and relevant
components.

2. There were many existing installations observed with old poles and damaged
brackets. The replacement of existing brackets and poles were big challenge.
BSCDCL has allowed the concessionaire to use the existing good condition
brackets, so that the street esthetic does not change. The areas where the new
brackets were required BSCDCL has allowed to change all the brackets of the
street.

3. There was a challenge to remotely turn ON/ OFF the street light so that the energy
can be saved and another challenge was to know the faulty street lights and their
location.

The LED light solution ordered by BSCDCL has the remote communication and remote
controlling feature so that the data can be captured form LED lights and remote
controlling can be done.
Remote monitoring feature enables to communicate:

o LED light energy consumption data

o ON/ OFF status

o Fault status

o LED street light location

o Street light ON/OFF timing

Remote controlling features enables to control:

o ON/OFF timing

o Group Control

o Individual Control

4. To choose the location of smart pole was a challenge so that the benefits of smart
pole can be passed on to the city residents, and the power infrastructure designed
can be used by telecom operators.

BSCDCL has chosen the smart pole location keeping in mind the high foot fall
areas, important junctions and call drop areas so that the maximum benefits can
be obtained.
Reduced Power consumption, Improved Lux level and Reduced load-
Abbreviation

MNRE - Ministry of New and Renewable Energy

NMC - Nagpur Municipal Corporation

HPSV - High Pressure Sodium Vapour lamp

BSCDCL - Bhopal Smart City Development Corporation Limited

LED - Light Emitting Diode

CFL - Compact fluorescent lamps

PPP - Public private partnership

SoS - Save Our Souls