Smart street lights illuminate Jaipur

Chosen as a ‘smart city’ a year ago, Jaipur has now become the first in the country to install environmentally friendly smart lighting on its streets.

Following the examples of smart cities in US and Europe, the pink city has installed the first  320 street lights along the Mahal Road.

Jaipur Development Authority Commissioner Shikhar Agarwal told Deccan Herald, "This is an innovative idea to save energy and manpower. The lights will be controlled by the network operating centre and does not require any manual intervention round the clock. We are aiming to save energy and, in the first phase, will install streetlights where there is no lighting.”

Controlled by the network operating centre in JDA headquarters, the streetlights would be managed by the web machine according to the lighting requirements.  After the current testing phase, 1,800 more smart lighting nodes will be installed in seven places such as Bassi, Baran Padan Pura, Chandlai Lake, Sawai Gatore, Mahal Road, and two stretches in Vidhyadhar Nagar.

If installed fully, the JDA hopes to save 70 per cent of its energy costs. “We use 280 watt LED bulbs, but these lights are only 120 watts, with the ability to brighten and dim according to the requirement,” JDA Additional Chief engineer Madan Choudhry said.

Referred to as intelligent lighting in UK, smart lighting is a kind of public lighting system that adapts itself to the movement of pedestrians, cyclists and cars. IT brightens when the movement is larger and dims when the street is virtually empty.

In 2006, Europe had the first large scale implementation of a controlled network in a street lighting application.