Skip to main content

Cities to invest $64 billion in LED and smart streetlights by 2025

A new study by the Northeast Group says there are currently more than 2,000 LED and smart streetlight projects globally. With these infrastructure projects, cities and municipalities across the world modernise their streetlights with more efficient light-emitting diode (LED) lights. They are also deploying sensors, communications and analytics software throughout their street lighting infrastructure and creating smart cities. This is a key segment of the emerging Internet of Things. Rapidly falling costs an
April 28, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
A new study by the Northeast Group says there are currently more than 2,000 LED and smart streetlight projects globally. With these infrastructure projects, cities and municipalities across the world modernise their streetlights with more efficient light-emitting diode (LED) lights. They are also deploying sensors, communications and analytics software throughout their street lighting infrastructure and creating smart cities. This is a key segment of the emerging Internet of Things. Rapidly falling costs and clear benefits have led to a sharp increase in the number and scale of LED and smart streetlight projects in the past year, according to the study.

"With LEDs approaching cost parity with legacy streetlights, their energy and maintenance savings make the business case a no-brainer. By 2025, LED and smart streetlights around the world will save 97,900 GWh annually, the equivalent of US$12.9 billion in electricity costs per year. Smart street lighting will also pave the way for additional smart city applications such as smart parking meters, environmental sensors and video monitoring," said Ben Gardner, president of Northeast Group.

Of the more than 2,000 current LED and smart streetlight projects across 90 countries, Northeast Group analysed more than 800 projects and found that cities are now undertaking larger-sized deployments. In just the past year, Madrid began the largest single-city project with 225,000 streetlights, Los Angeles announced it would network the 140,000 LED streetlights it recently deployed and the utility Florida Power & Light set plans to network 500,000 streetlights.

As deployments accelerate globally, diverse vendors are all competing for a piece of the growing market. Increasingly, partnerships between vendors across the value chain provide complete smart city solutions. Acuity, 852 Bridgelux, 1947 Cooper, Cree, Echelon, Elster, 940 GE, Itron, 1786 Osram, 5147 Philips, Schreder, Sensus, Silver Spring Networks and 5392 Toshiba are among the major vendors in the market.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • New mobility services could benefit city dwellers and make public transport more affordable
    November 3, 2017
    New mobility services integrated into mass transit systems could improve the lives of all urban inhabitants and make public transport more affordable, accessible and sustainable, according to research from the Coalition for Urban Transitions (CfUT). It also presents the first global survey of new mobility services, and identifies emerging trends and opportunities for decision-makers in both the public and private sectors.
  • Abu Dhabi seeks safe and efficient multi-modal ITS solutions
    December 17, 2014
    Abu Dhabi’s Department of Transport is planning to roll out its second phase ITS Strategy and Action Plan through to 2019 which will deploy a host of innovative multimodal ITS solutions. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is continuing to experience rapid growth in both its economy and population and none more so than its capital, Abu Dhabi. To cope with the current expansion, and in anticipation of future growth, the Abu Dhabi Surface Transport Master Plan has been devised by its Department of Transport and th
  • Thales builds on Canadian connection for transit R&D
    June 20, 2016
    The Canadian province of Ontario is continuing to benefit from its ongoing investment in transit R&D. David Crawford looks at the impact of new investment. Developing the next generation of urban rail signalling solutions worldwide, with the emphasis on transit security and efficiency, is the goal of a recently-created business partnership between the government of the Canadian province of Ontario and Thales Canada. The wholly-owned subsidiary of the France-HQ'd global defence, aerospace and transportation
  • Israel aspires to ITS-led future
    May 29, 2013
    Shay Soffer, Chief Scientist with the Israel National Road Safety Authority, talks to Jason Barnes about his country’s current ITS outlook and how he sees this developing in the future. Israel ranks alongside countries such as the US and France in the road safety stakes, with an average 7.1 deaths per billion kilometres driven. But at that point the similarities end, as the country’s overriding issue is pedestrian safety. This is driven by several factors, including being a relatively small country where pe