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Street Light Working Group Update

The San Diego Climate Collaborative, CleanTECH San Diego, and Qualcomm co-sponsored a Next Generation Street Light Symposium hosted by Supervisor Dave Roberts’ Sustainability Team at the County of San Diego. Ed Ebrahimian, Director of the City of Los Angeles’s Bureau of Street Lighting (LA BSL) was the guest speaker. For the first 150,000 LED street light retrofits installed in LA, the city has seen a 63 percent reduction in energy, cost savings of $7.7 million, maintenance savings greater than 50 percent, and crime reduction trends of 12 percent. Ed also provided a preview of LA BSL’s next generation non-lighting pilot trials that have been launched, including security cameras, small cells and telecommunications, solar-to-grid, and banners.

Marty Turock of CleanTECH San Diego provided an update on SDG&E’s planned advice letter to the CPUC to create an interim LS-2 dimmed tariff rate that will enable all of the public agencies in the SDG&E service territory to monetize the additional LED lumen maintenance savings that is possible with LED street light networks that have integrated adaptive controls. Michael Poplawski of PNNL provided an update on new draft specifications from the Department of Energy and the American National Standards Institute that are under development with regard to Networked Outdoor Lighting Control Systems. Qualcomm presented an overview on the “Future of Connectivity” and also facilitated a visioning session that identified public safety and homeland security as the top priority applications for our  municipalities’ next generation smart city infrastructure platforms.

City of Oceanside was unable to attend the Next Generation Street Light Symposium, but has subsequently shared valuable insights on their recently completed LED luminaire and adaptive controls competitive procurement. Since receiving their $5,000,000 lease/purchase financing package from Bank of America last year, pricing for LED luminaires has continued to drop and the City of Oceanside is now able to complete their Phase 1 retrofit of 7,700 street lights and their Phase 2 retrofit of an additional 800 park, parking lot, and facilities exterior lights, both with adaptive controls using this one loan.