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

  • Smart LED lighting pole nominated at JEC awards 2018
    January 29, 2018
    A partnership comprising Exel Composites Oyj (Finland), Vaisala Oyj (Finland) and Teleste have received a JEC Innovation Award nomination for their Smart LED lighting pole with integrated functions at this year's competition in Paris on the 7 March 2018. The solution is aimed at enabling smart city development and is said to offer a longer lifetime compared to steel and wood, aesthetically camouflaged antennas and an easy assembly. JEC Group (JEC) has shortlisted 30 finalists across 10 categories which
  • ITS America urges greater international co-operation on ITS
    January 19, 2012
    Iteris, Inc.'s Abbas Mohaddes talks about his plans for ITS America this year
  • US economic stimulus package highlights ITS technology
    July 17, 2012
    US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood talks to ITS International about economic stimulus funding and the absolute need to maintain and increase the use of technology in transportation. Of the total of $787 billion of funding announced under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the economic stimulus package which was signed into law by US President Barack Obama on 17 February 2009, $48.1 billion will go to the US Department of Transportation (USDOT). Of that, $27.5 billion is for highway in
  • Astucia IRS2 road stud gains UK type approval
    April 30, 2013
    Clearview Traffic’s Astucia IRS2 hard wired intelligent road stud, originally developed to meet the requirements of the UK’s Hindhead Tunnel project, has received type approval from the UK Department for Transport (DfT). The road studs had to meet stringent regulatory, technical and safety requirements for the purposes of carrying out road tests in accordance with the provisions of British Standard BS EN 1463-1:2000 and, to complete the type approval process, underwent a year’s endurance trial to prove thei