The world is witnessing technology revolution and seriously considering energy efficient methods to be applied on products to reduce energy wastage. There is a huge push to save environment by reducing fossil fuel consumption. Many companies and their innovations across the globe are using infusing Internet of Things connectivity to monitor power hungry machines and lighting system making them more energy efficient.
India perspective and associated benefits
India is also looking at such cutting edge technologies and early adoption of renewable technologies and energy efficient solutions. It is also important to note that the government policies and support that technology companies require in it play a very big role. The SENSEnuts EnLighten smart street lighting project envisioned the development of IoT based smart Light solution which could be integrated with different streetlight Luminaires.
Altogether this innovation helped in monitoring the energy consumption of each individual light in an area thereby creating monetary benefits, helping the government Municipal Agency to optimise their energy bill while making it convenient to monitor and control them from a centralised office. The smart streetlights further helped in reduction of maintenance cost which earlier required trained personnel and resolution to public grievances. Number of surveys conducted by Energy and Lighting companies suggests that replacing existing legacy High Pressure Sodium (HPS) ballasts by smart connected LED Lights contributed to savings to a tune of 40 – 60% of in monetary benefits parallel to energy consumption.
Conjoining safety and regulation through smart concepts
Well lit up roads, highways and vulnerable places at nights are critical and should be of utmost importance with respect to crime mitigation. Deploying smart lighting systems on the street pavements such as these can ensure safety and harbour lifesaving use cases. In Indian context, it could be believed that they not only save energy and bills but also ensure lit up roads by reducing outages.
The government and regulatory authorities need to imply more focus and induce sense of urgency for laying out policy and plans to promote such innovative ideas. Also, technical authorities like Energy efficiency services Ltd (EESL) must take part in framing the standard and guidelines for different Networking standards/alliances and operating frequency bands like 2.4 GHz, 865Mhz etc.
There is a huge need for different LED Light manufactures, which must come on-board to uniformity of LED drivers to enable interoperability. In current scenario, different companies and corporate giants are trying to influence the market by pushing their products rather than adopting grown strategies in smart concept verticals. Though few Indian companies have demonstrated products and technology for Smart Lighting, there is a need to expect certain challenges in proliferation while on the long run.
Readily deployable and interoperable solutions
In order to develop a smart Light solution, a three sixty view of above factors and challenges are required to be considered. The system must be flexible enough to adopt different technologies & standards at different layers. Looking at a future, strategic partnership and inter-operability between the stakeholders and technology must work hand in hand for faster adoption. With large scale deployments, the cost of technology & components is obviously expected to come down by virtue of economy of scale manufacturing.
In an never ending conclusion, human civilization must strive for creating a brighter future, cleaner environment and well lit up streets in order to experience Safer & Smarter cities and this humble innovation is just a start.
