The LightGrid™ from Current by GE is an outdoor wireless control system for street and roadway lights. With the technology of the company’s central management software, it can report energy usage and other operational data of street lights to a central database. The accurate, utility-grade energy metering per pole allows you to pay for what is used.
A node at the top of the light fixture collects data and sends it to a wireless LightGrid gateway. The node connects to an ANSI standard socket, so it can be added at any time. The gateway “speaks” with the node, transferring specific street light usage and performance data. Data is delivered via cellular or Ethernet backhaul to a GE provided or customer hosted server, making it readily accessible to municipalities. Lighting data for every fixture is accessible through a Web-based interface that can be hosted remotely. Authorized users can see and affect lighting performance.
The Web-based interface linked to the lighting controls allows authorized users and owners to remotely visualize real-time performance of their outdoor lighting system. Further software capabilities for the outdoor wireless control system include scheduling, customized reporting, grouping, and user access level management. Schedules are stored at the street lighting fixture, providing continued performance even during network disruptions.
The LightGrid technology has GPS in the lighting controls so municipalities can instantly identify usage and performance of street lights in specific locations. They can then activate more precise “on/off” and street light dimming schedules, particularly in low-traffic and other areas during the night. Additionally, the one-piece lighting control simply connects to the external socket of the street light and doesn’t require any internal fixture change.
“LightGrid provides accurate, utility-grade energy metering per pole, so its specific usage information allows municipalities to pay for what it uses,” said Rick Freeman, GE Lighting global product general manager for Intelligent Devices. “GE is helping municipalities realize energy and cost savings while predicting and preventing outages, offering an overall improved performance of street light systems.”
