By Itron
Around the globe, cities are responsible for approximately 75% of man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Many cities have since embarked on a journey to reduce their carbon footprint with a pledge to halve their emissions by 2030, and many targeting 2050 to achieve Net Zero carbon emissions. Besides the pledge, a growing number of cities and towns are now mandated with local, state or national carbon-reduction policies.
The rapid urbanization of communities further drives the demand to build more infrastructure. There is an increasing pressure on city and town councils to delicately balance the demand and supply of energy while keeping up with the carbon reduction goals and policies. Further, the integration of clean renewable energy alternatives often takes a long time to realise with large investments required.
Hence, many cities have started to prioritise projects such as smart street lighting that will rapidly and measurably contribute to a reduction in carbon emissions. One of the low-hanging fruits for carbon reduction is the replacement of their aging, inefficient street lights with light emitting diodes (LEDs) and smart control systems. Moreover, upgrading to smart street lights delivers immediate energy efficiency and return on investment gains that can be easily measured with the right controls in place.
In an average town, street lights account for 15-40% of total energy consumption while in an average city, this climbs to 60%. LED street lights with smart controls can:
» save millions in electricity and maintenance costs,
» reduce energy and associated (scope 2) carbon emissions by up to 80%, and
» provide verified carbon-reduction figures that satisfy the most rigorous 24/7 accounting methods.
In 2015, Paris, the famous City of Lights, took the first step in their efforts to minimizing their carbon emissions and conserving energy by replacing their old street lamps with LED luminaries, networked lighting controls (NLCs), a wireless communications platform, and a central management system (CMS) capable of controlling and measuring dynamic lighting schedules. The project was a resounding success and that helped to spur the rest of France to replace their more than 7 million street lights starting from 2016. The country is on track to complete them all by 2030 which is coincidentally the same year that the country has pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 40%.
To find out more about how cities around the world are tracking and reducing their carbon emissions, read the whitepaper: Sustainability Through Streetlights: Why Smart LED Streetlights are the Gold Standard for Measurable Carbon Reduction
