Analyzing the Market Adoption of LED Streetlights versus Smart Streetlights

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2Q 2018 | IN-5107

Across the world, cities are increasingly investing in energy-efficient street lighting by replacing them with Light-Emitting Diode (LED) luminaires that lower energy consumption and significantly reduce operation and maintenance costs. Globally, countries and cities have introduced ambitious programs to upgrade to LED streetlights to reduce the carbon footprint and help achieve national carbon-emission targets. Although LED streetlights are witnessing significant investment and adoption worldwide, these initiatives have had a relatively minor impact on the adoption of networked or smart street lighting solutions.

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National and Regional Policy Drives Global Adoption of LED Streetlights

NEWS


Across the world, cities are increasingly investing in energy-efficient street lighting by replacing them with Light-Emitting Diode (LED) luminaires that lower energy consumption and significantly reduce operation and maintenance costs. Globally, countries and cities have introduced ambitious programs to upgrade to LED streetlights to reduce the carbon footprint and help achieve national carbon-emission targets. Although LED streetlights are witnessing significant investment and adoption worldwide, these initiatives have had a relatively minor impact on the adoption of networked or smart street lighting solutions.

  • India introduced the Street Lighting National Programme (SLNP) in January 2015 to facilitate retrofitting 14 million streetlights in India to LED luminaires by 2019. As of April 12, 2018, more than 5.5 million conventional streetlights have been replaced with LED luminaires.
  • China has introduced several policies and regulations such as banning the use of Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) and introducing the energy conservation law to accelerate the development of energy-saving and environmental protection industries. This has propelled several LED lighting companies in the country, driving LED streetlight adoption.
  • The European Union set itself a target to reduce energy used for general lighting by at least 20% by 2020, resulting in rapid uptake of energy-efficient lighting solutions.
  • In 2015, the United States announced a nationwide streetlight upgrade plan, challenging city mayors to upgrade to LED light poles to accelerate adoption and use of high-efficiency outdoor lighting. Cities in collaboration with the Department of Energy have been participating in outdoor lighting accelerator programs for analysis, securing funding, and implementation.

This executive foresight will analyze the growth in LED luminaire market and highlights key takeaways from successful smart streetlighting implementations.

More Than 5.8 Million Smart Streetlights Installed by the End of 2017

IMPACT


The exponential growth in the adoption of LED streetlights have resulted in the following:

  • Large-scaledeployments have driven down prices of LED modules, with an average module lasting more than 150,000 hours.
  • As LED technology improves, energy savings from streetlights are beginning to be realized, with some cities claiming more than 63% energy savings from previous high-pressure sodium units.
  • Streetlight replacements have been faster because an LED panel is smaller and lighter compared to High-Intensity Discharge (HID), incandescent, and CFLs. This has had an impact on the reduction of the engineering and labor costs in replacements.
  • Luminaire OEMs adoption of standardized interfaces from ANSI, NEMA, and recent European specifications from the Zhaga Consortium. The Zhaga Consortium has developed the interface specifications known as Books to standardize the components of LED luminaires, drivers, sensors, and communication modules to enable interoperability and future-proof outdoor luminaires.

By the end of 2017, 83 million conventional streetlights were replaced with LED streetlights across the world, with Europe leading in installed base followed by Asia-Pacific and North America. Conventional streetlight replacement to LED has grown globally at 27% from 2016 to 2017; however, this has not driven wider adoption of Central Management Systems (CMSs) to control and monitor streetlights. The recent ABI Research market data Smart Street Lighting (MD-SMLI-104) estimates that by the end of 2017, there were 5.8 million connected streetlights compared to a total addressable market of 322 million streetlights in the world. In the regional replacement of existing lamps-based lights with LED lights, Europe has the largest installed base of smart streetlights, accounting for 40% of the global installed base in 2017, followed by North America and Asia-Pacific. By 2023, Asia-Pacific will have the largest share of smart streetlights, with 30% of the global connections. Among connectivity technologies, non-cellular LPWA networks were the most preferred technology, accounting for 60% of the market, followed by IEEE 802.15.4-based mesh networking technologies.

While the energy and environmental benefits of LED streetlights are evident, the value of networked lighting systems in LED streetlights is still unclear. Networked lighting systems using CMSs account for less than 2% of the total installed base of streetlights and less than 5% of the LED installed base. In 2017, 22 million conventional streetlights were replaced with LED luminaires, but only 2.7 million luminaires embedded a CMS solution.

Delivering Proof of Value in Smart Streetlights

RECOMMENDATIONS


Smart streetlight adoption of connectivity is primarily driven by utility monitoring, with index reports transmitted through small data packets of 14 to 30 bytes, twice per day. The luminaires can capture up to 20 different metrics, such as energy consumption, synchronization, and asset information, along with infrequent updates and event-based alerts. The frequency of the data collection is often configurable and can vary according to the region or the customer use case. Upfront capital investment can be a significant challenge in an upgrade to LED streetlights, and savings from networked lights aren’t often perceived to be sufficient to justify additional investment in citywide installations.

 

Some of the lessons learned from successful outdoor connected lighting systems implementations are as follows:

 

  • LED streetlights help reduce energy consumption, but in most instances, energy tariffs are still estimated and not based on actual usage. Standards-based metered luminaires that can transmit usage data periodically will enable accurate usage-based billing and efficient monetization of the energy savings.
  • Asset management capability is a value-added service in traditional lamps that have more frequent cyclical and reactive maintenance. This has diminished value with the LED luminaires with a predictable product life of more than 15 years.
  • With application requirement not exceeding a few tens of bytes per transmission, non-cellular LPWA technologies and IEEE 802.15.4-based technologies have been the most successful wireless connectivity solutions. 802.15.4-based technologies have been most successful in implementations where utilities have leveraged their existing network used for connecting smart meters to also connect streetlights.
  • Sustainability has been one of the strongest drivers for the adoption of LED technology in streetlights, and connectivity solutions that can further improve environmental benefits directly or indirectly by enabling other new smart city use cases will be valuable.
  • GPS information for the luminaire is captured during the installation and commissioning process, often using a barcode and mobile device. There is increasing growth in the adoption of GPS receivers, which is driven by simplification in the remote installation, configuration, and provisioning of the connectivity module of the luminaire.
  • Adaptive lighting adjusts light output based on certain events or outdoor environmental conditions including traffic volume, parked vehicles, intersections/interchanges, and pedestrian/bicycle interaction. Furthermore, adaptive lighting is also used to manage lumen output to not over light an area and/or raise the level as the LED ages to further extend the life of the LED.
  • Outdoor smart lighting systems feature standardized hardware approved by NEMA and Zhaga, while network protocols like DALI for adaptive lighting are bringing in new opportunities in smart city applications. Adoption of these standards among OEMs will help drive interoperability and future-proof luminaires that can be upgraded with sensing and communication capabilities.

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