Echelon - Controlling Street Lights in Saudi Arabia - a case study
In Saudi Arabia, two different cities reexamined their street lighting operations.
System Features
A state-of-the art street lighting system, with real-time remote control of the public lighting. Lights equipped with inteli- LIGHT® controllers containing Echelon 3120® Smart Trans- ceivers can be remotely turned on and off or intensity can be adjusted by automatic pro- gramming or sensors.
The city of Riyadh, the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia, is situated in the center of the Arabian Peninsula and home to over 7 million people. Street lights illuminate the vast city dis- tricts and keep the glow through arid summers and chilly winters. Although extreme conditions were not a defining consideration in changing street light operations, the city wanted to have better control of the lights for brightening and dimming them.
Mecca, located in the Makkah province, has un- dergone a large expansion in size and infrastruc- ture to become a thriving cosmopolitan city, one that is sought out by more than 15 million visitors each year. Mecca, too, features an arid climate,
but maintains its warm temperatures year round. As street lights were added to support the new, growing infrastructure, the need for constant service needed to be addressed.
The Challenge
Both cities, Riyadh and Mecca, wanted to control and monitor the street lights and net- works in their municipalities, such that street lights could be turned on and off (and brightened and dimmed) remotely, and that monitoring of the lights would provide municipal management with data stating the condition of the light bulbs, energy consumption, system malfunctions, energy leakage, possible cable cut and door access status at lamp and power supply cabinet level. Riyadh and Mecca needed a way to know if street lights were not performing, and one that didn’t require driving around and looking at the lights.
The Solution
Three separate companies combined their specialties to control street light management for Riyadh and Mecca Municipalities: The Saudi Delta Group, Flashnet and Echelon Corporation.
The Saudi Delta Group of Saudi Arabia, through its diverse operation and logistics services, provided high-value operation performance via its lighting division. Beginning in 2010, the group provided integrated solutions in energy savings systems and intelligent network applications. The company implemented the two major projects, in street light management, in the Riyadh and Mecca Municipalities.
The Saudi Delta Group partnered with Flashnet, who became the sole agent for their products and solutions. Flashnet develops and integrates solutions that optimize the energy distribution network and offer new ways to both monitor and manage the electric grid. Their inteliLIGHT solution is a complete street light management system that combines Echelon’s power line transceivers with Flashnet’s hardware and soft- ware. The central application offers unique intelligence in managing all information related to street lighting — energy monitoring, energy man- agement, network layout, power supply cabinets monitoring and control, and luminaries’ management.
In Mecca, 11.000 lamp controllers are in place and will be 27.000 installed until the end of this year, and the power supply cabinets are equipped with a Echelon SmartServers, Flashet inteliLIGHT routers and Network Analyzers. Each luminary has an inteliLIGHT controller that includes the 3120 Smart Transceiver. The Smart Transceiver sends its messages via the existing power line. The SmartServer in the supply cabinet interprets the message. The Flashnet inteliLIGHT router acts as a standalone zone controller, controls and monitors all the streetlights and electric network locally. The communication between inteliLIGHT router and NMS software is based on an advanced messaging system over secured VPN channel with data compression and optimization. The inteliLIGHT NMS software is monitoring and controlling the power supply cabinets and issues the commands to control and dim the existing electromagnetic ballast and lamps. It can monitor the system to identify the state of the bulb on a pole, locate malfunctions, locate energy leakage, locate possible cable cut and verify a need for a service to replace a burned out or broken light.
In Riyadh, delivery is in place to equip 202 power supply cabinets with SmartServers, inteliLIGHT Communication Routers, and inteliLIGHT Network Analyzers which will communicate with 24.750 inteliLIGHT controllers.
Flashnet‘s inteliLIGHT NMS software interprets the street light data, allowing light sources to be individually or cluster-controlled and programmed (to turn on and off) and reduced in intensity. At the global level, this includes seasonal schedules for winter and summer, and a special awareness for rain, fog and dust storms.
At the local level, monitoring of the street lights allows for changes to ac- commodate road and pedestrian traffic, residential areas, and feedback to maintain sensor input with overrides at the ready to allow for changes. Each pole and power supply cabinet access door is monitored and in case of unauthorized access an alarm is triggered and shown in real time in the inteliLIGHT NMS interface. The electrical networks supplying the street lights remains continuously under power and can be used for a wide variety of future Digital City applications.