The most important parameter of development for any country across the world is its robust and efficient transportation network, connecting each state, town, city, village and even the neighbourhood. Hence the ‘streets, roads, freeways and highways’ become a crucial part of this network which is imperative for progress.

And these have to be illuminated so that sufficient visibility is guaranteed for the safety of the people travelling on them. But the down side of it is that a lot of the electricity used to illuminate this network gets wasted in the process of illumination. There are over 300 million street lights deployed in the entire world that end up with 40% of energy waste which the costs around 20 billion dollars.

Thankfully, the lighting industry has ushered in a new wave of revolution. The world is moving towards ‘smart’ energy management that involves ‘intelligent’ use of electricity in generation, deployment as well as consumption in which harnessing the power of renewable resources will play a major role.

As an integral part of urban lighting infrastructure, Solar street lighting is at the core of a sustainable digital transformation. The initiative starts with energy efficiency and sustainability but goes far beyond. An ‘intelligent’ LED based Solar Street Lighting Solution is not only an environment friendly option but can also save up to 30% – 50% on the operating costs.

Evolute Group, a 30 year old Global conglomerate, on the forefront of electronics and technology led businesses within India and abroad has established themselves as a leading technology solutions provider, harnessing innovative technologies across Industries. Evolute Group’s latest venture ‘Solar Citi’, an IoT based Solar Street Lighting Solution is the best example of an ‘intelligent’ street lighting solution.

It is an ideal lighting system that uses the renewable energy from the sun for illumination of streets, squares, cross roads, highways, airports, hospitals, security, residential complexes, parks, recreational areas, schools, colleges, business parks, IT parks, etc.

An intelligent Solar street lighting system is an IoT based system that can be programmed to adjust light output basis time, usage and occupancy, for example, automating classification based on the time of the day, intensity of ambience light, presence of automotive traffic, pedestrians, cyclists, etc. It is a wireless based system that can remotely track and control the actual energy consumption of the street lights and take appropriate energy consumption reduction measures through IoT based solutions thus reducing the CO2 emission and light pollution while saving Energy and reducing manpower.

Evolute’s Solar Citi operates on a set of sensors that transmit data based upon the light level. The Master device (gateway) handles all street lights in its surrounding area through communication. It passes the message to monitor the status of all the slave devices such as switching ON/OFF at the right time & based on acknowledgement detects status of each light.

Individual Street light works based on auto intensity control i.e. when it detects any object or activity in that particular area it automatically switches to 100% intensity otherwise it operates at a low intensity level. Adding IoT connectivity to Solar street lights quantifies the benefits of sustainable development. The combination of electricity generation, storage, network communicating, intelligent sensing, and sophisticated data analysis capabilities allow municipal authorities to monitor and dynamically control the street lighting systems across areas.

With a superior ‘Smart Lithium-ion Battery Management System’ it stores enough power to last for days, depending on the autonomy requirement and defined battery capacity, when the sunlight is low or intermittently available during rains or winters. The IoT mechanism in ‘Solar Citi’ only authenticates battery packs approved by Evolute, thus avoiding the risk of tampering.

The IoT based lighting technology resolves the scalability challenges to manage a large number of streetlight facilities by aggregating and act on large amounts of data generated by the street lights to improve urban lighting services, generation of electricity through solar panels maximizes energy savings reducing operation costs and the latest Lithium-ion batteries and battery management technology make it a low maintenance, reliable and durable solution. What’s more, its remote monitoring feature reduces the risk of theft with instant alerts sent from the site.

A large number of applications can be put into practice within a broader context of the extensive development of smart city initiatives across the world. Aptly named – Solar Citi the Smarter Solar Street Lighting Solution is a perfect choice for the smart city infrastructures to provide extended capabilities such as public safety monitoring, traffic management, weather monitoring, environmental protection, smart parking, WiFi accessing, utility metering and leakage sensing, voice broadcasting, etc. The technology can also be used for Electric Vehicle charging points, powering bill boards, etc.

Solar power is the most efficient, sustainable and effective way to look at electricity consumption whether the project is large or small. And where IoT meets Solar, the results are bound to be beyond belief. Every little thing done to help the earth go green is one step forward to independence from non-renewable sources. And ‘Solar Citi’ is Evolute’s leap forward in that direction.

What ways are you working towards your own energy independence?

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