The City of Chicago has completed its Smart Lighting Program’s (CSLP) – a four-year long modernization of its existing street lighting infrastructure.
Considered to be the largest city-led wireless smart streetlight program in the US, CSLP connects approximately 280,000 streetlight fixtures, about 85% of which have smart LEDs installed. Ameresco – the primary energy efficiency contractor for the $160M project – states that the new fixtures use 50-75% less electricity, and last two to three times as long as traditional high-pressure sodium (HPS) lights.
The City projects it will save $12.4M in electricity this year and more than $100M in electricity costs throughout the next 10 years. Another expected benefit is an improvement in public safety due to the presence of higher quality, more reliable lighting
“Creation of the lighting management system puts us in the forefront of smart cities around the nation,” said Gia Biagi, commissioner, Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT). “The programme has made Chicago a greener city and is providing clearer, more reliable night-time lighting in every neighborhood. And the smart lighting management is making our operations more efficient, enabling our workforce to respond to outages more quickly when they occur.”
The City of Chicago, CDOT, Itron, John Burns Construction, and Lyons View Manufacturing collaborated on the project.
“We are proud to be Chicago’s partner in delivering a truly transformational project,” said Lou Maltezos, executive vice president, Ameresco. “We commend the City of Chicago and its leadership for successfully completing a project that has become a blueprint for future smart lighting implementations. One of the major benefits of the Chicago Smart Lighting Programme is, of course, the energy savings which then translates into cost savings, and ultimately a reduction in the city’s carbon footprint.”