Science & Technology
Cities Across France Achieve up to 45% Energy Savings Using Echelon Based Smart Street Lighting Systems
SAN JOSE, Calif.--([ BUSINESS WIRE ])--Echelon Corporation ([ NASDAQ ]:[ ELON ]) today announced that its energy control technology for smart, networked street lighting systems is continuing to experience rapid adoption. Similar to its success in China, the market in Europe, and in particular France, is recognizing the advantages of Echelon intelligent distributed control solutions using power line communications (PLC) for reducing energy consumption and maintenance costs of municipal street lighting. The street lighting solution includes Echelon's power line signaling technology for distributed control, Echelon SmartServers for segment control and enterprise connectivity, and system software from French company Streetlight.Vision.
"The French cities are leaders in improving energy efficiency and lowering carbon footprint on their street lighting networks, while improving safety in the streets"
Studies have shown that as much as 40% of city energy budgets go towards lighting streets and that a streetlight is responsible for emitting an average of 200 kg of CO2 every year. Energy savings, carbon reduction, lower operating costs and a general push by state and local governments for greener cities are all driving the decision to move to advanced control networking technology that enable cities to dynamically dim their lamps to save significant energy and reduce their carbon footprints.
aEven though France has one of the lowest electricity prices in Europe, many cities and French streetlight maintenance companies are deploying smart and controlled street lighting solutions,a said Christophe Orceau, General Manager of Streetlight.Vision. aAbout 30,000 lights have been equipped with Echelon PLC transceivers together with the Echelon energy control network platform in 2010, and we have the opportunity to have nearly 250,000 installed by 2013. Thanks to Echelona™s technology, smart street lighting solutions are easy to deploy and provide energy saving as well as maintenance saving benefits both to cities and to streetlight maintenance companies. With energy savings up to 45% on our projects in France, smart streetlights are a perfect fit with PPP, MPE, EMC and ESCO types of contracts.a
Most projects in France have moved beyond a desire for an energy efficient lamp to a requirement for system-wide intelligence and control. French cities including Lyon, Brest, Moissy and the RSEIPC (an organization that manages 20,000 streetlights close to Chartres) have specified Echelon compatible smart street lighting in their tenders. This is in addition to more than 60 large and small cities in France that have deployed an Echelon based streetlight monitoring system in 2010 on part or throughout their streetlight network. This adoption is up significantly from the 15 cities that deployed Echelon based street lighting in 2009.
aThe French cities are leaders in improving energy efficiency and lowering carbon footprint on their street lighting networks, while improving safety in the streets,a said Anders Axelsson, Echelona™s senior vice president, commercial markets. aWe understand that in addition to helping provide these benefits, a key driver behind the adoption of Echelon based solutions is that it is the only open, multi-supplier solution on the market. This means that cities can select from among dozens of manufacturers of light controllers and not be bound to a single manufacturer, which is the case with proprietary systems.a
Cities that have deployed smart, networked street lighting systems based on Echelon energy control networking technology benefit from:
- Energy savings resulting from programmable dimming of each individual light point at any light level;
- Lower maintenance costs due to automatic lamp failure identification;
- Optimized energy cost from remote monitoring of status and consumption data in real-time;
- Increased customer satisfaction and performance with both remote control of individual lamps and lighting segments;
- Responsiveness where ita™s needed with real-time, local decision making and action based on optional networked sensors;
- A single, extensible control infrastructure that allows the use of different lighting technologies appropriate to various sectors of the city and an ability to adopt new lighting technologies as they emerge;
- Leveraging an the existing streetlight energy network for future Smart City applications such as bus lane control or pedestrian sensing to guide light output; and
- A wide choice of light point controllers from the fast growing number of manufacturers that have adopted Echelona™s power line technology. Controllers equipped with Echelona™s technology are interoperable and compatible with each other, providing municipalities with an open, competitive, future-proof platform for Smart City applications.
Echelona™s power line signaling technology and SmartServer segment controllers for smart, distributed control of street lighting systems, which are being adopted by more and more manufacturers of streetlight controllers every month, are becoming the de facto standard for managed street lighting systems worldwide. More information about networked street lighting systems can be found at [ http://www.echelon.com/solutions/streetlight/ ].
About Echelon Corporation
Echelon Corporation ([ NASDAQ ]: [ ELON ]) is the world's leading open-standard energy control networking company. Echelon technologies connect more than 35 million homes, 300,000 buildings and 100 million devices to the smart grid, and help customers save 20% or more on their energy usage. With more than 20 years of experience in energy control, Echelon delivers a wide range of innovative solutions to commercial and electric utility customers. More information about Echelon can be found at [ http://www.echelon.com ].
Echelon, LonWorks, and the Echelon logo are registered trademarks of Echelon Corporation registered in the United States and other countries. Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
This press release may contain statements relating to future plans, events or performance. Such statements may involve risks and uncertainties, including the risk associated with uncertainties pertaining to market acceptance of the Echelon power line based ballasts, the risk that the actual number of street lights deployed in France using Echelona™s technology in the future will not meet current expectations, risks pertaining the market acceptance and successful completion of Echelon based street lighting solutions, the risk that Echelona™s power line signaling technology and SmartServer segment controllers do not perform as designed or do not enable the expected energy reduction, maintenance cost savings or other benefits; and other risks identified in Echelon's SEC filings. Actual results, events and performance may differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Echelon undertakes no obligation to release publicly the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
