Echelon Corp. 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.
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.