New technology is lighting up cities and saving energy at the same time.
In Madrid, monitored street lights are being switched on across the whole city to improve safety. Along stretches of motorway in the Netherlands, new lamps are being installed that cast a natural white light at an intensity determined by the traffic flow and weather.
And across the ditch, Adelaide's Entertainment Centre has been fitted with a lighting system so elaborate that a great night out can be had by merely gazing at the lit-up building.
It may not yet be obvious in New Zealand but we're on the brink of a public lighting revolution, and those at the forefront say the new technology offers cities numerous benefits.
"Intelligent outdoor control solutions can help councils increase city safety, increase branding of their cities and, at the same time, save on energy and maintenance bills," says Stefaan Note.
Note, product manager at Philips' lighting division in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, was in the country last month to speak at seminars entitled "Transforming Cities".
According to Philips, building and street lighting consumes three-quarters of lighting energy. With energy-efficient lamps and control systems, 40 per cent of that consumption could be saved, it claims.
The breakthrough of the past few years is the LED (light-emitting diode) lamp, which Philips proclaims is "arguably the most profound change" since Edison in the United States and Swan in Britain threw the switch on electric lighting. About 10 per cent of street lights, or luminaires, installed today have LED lamps but by 2020 Note expects that proportion to reach about 75 per cent.
The Dutch highway authority is proving a good customer for the sophisticated luminaires, which are being produced by one of the country's biggest companies.
"Every new piece of highway that is being built is having our Starsense product installed, which can dim the lights during the night based on traffic counters and weather conditions." If an emergency arises, the system can be overridden to turn the lights back on full.
But perhaps no one would notice anyway. Note says Philips has discovered that lights can be dimmed by 30 per cent without people realising, representing an immediate saving. "In residential areas, where we know there's almost no traffic, with LEDs we could dim further and save even more money."
Another source of savings is on maintenance. In Paris, more than a dozen cars crawl the streets each night looking for blown street lights, a job Philips is working to make redundant with luminaires that report faults automatically.
Philips isn't the only game in town in advanced lighting systems, says Roy Speed, a specialist in the subject at Massey University, but it is an acknowledged leader.
"Philips, Osram, General Electric and Sylvania are the long-established big names in the lighting field," he says. With LEDs as a major research and development focus, their performance is improving almost month by month.
"LEDs are very definitely moving towards being the lighting technology of the future," he says, although LED output and lamp-life claims - some manufacturers say their lamps are good for 100,000 hours - are sometimes exaggerated.
LEDs aren't yet a good substitute for general illumination but where they shine is in coloured and display lighting, replacing metal halide lamps for lighting up Auckland's Sky Tower, Speed says.
Elsewhere in New Zealand, a handful of examples of state-of-the-art public lighting can be spotted - notably Newmarket's colourfully lit railway station, and the approach to Christchurch's AMI Stadium, which has 26 dimmable luminaires. But consultant Bryan King reckons we're about a decade behind the Northern Hemisphere.
"Like anything electronic, smart control systems are getting cheaper and cheaper and doing more and more," says King. "In the last few years functionality and cost-benefits have gone up immensely."
Uptake in New Zealand lags because there is none of the regulatory prodding resorted to by the European Commission to reduce energy consumption. Nor do we have the public-private partnership models that can help pay for efficient, modern infrastructure. "There have been European Commission directives mandating these sorts of systems," King says. "What's also fanned the flames in Europe has been access to investment capital."
New Zealand local authorities he has talked to say "they like the technology, they like the value and performance it can deliver, but they don't have the money and the mayor doesn't want to put up the rates".
Nonetheless, recent seminars are bringing about "an awakening", King says. Before long we, too, should see the light.
Anthony Doesburg is an Auckland technology journalist
