What is SOLSUN
The Sustainable Outdoor Lighting and Sensory Urban Network (SOLSUN) uses street lighting control systems to provide connectivity for ‘smart city’ applications. Using EnLight technology installed within existing street lighting and the deployment of networked sensors to monitor the chosen urban environment, SOLSUN demonstrates how an intelligent city infrastructure can be created in a cost effective and sustainable way.
Why the need to create a Smart City?
Carbon reduction targets, rising energy costs and shrinking municipal budgets are placing city authorities under considerable pressure to find cost-effective ways of delivering sustainable action, while maintaining high quality public services for their ever increasing populations.
Project Overview
Following successful trials in the UK, EnLight and its partners are developing new technology and sensors for implementation and monitoring in the city of Budapest across a 2 year period.
SOLSUN will use the EnLight energy efficient lighting control platform as its foundation. EnLight is the only integrated system on the market that can be retrofitted in existing infrastructure to deliver significant energy and maintenance cost savings, and be expanded for other applications.
Key areas will include:
- Street Lighting
- Traffic
- Emissions Monitoring
- Noise
- Signage
- Data Analytics
- Mobile Applications
- Interoperability
- GHG Statistics
Technology will be installed to reduce energy consumption at the same time as turning street lights into nodes on a scalable network that is also expandable for other applications. Sensors will capture data on air pollution, noise pollution and traffic density; information gathered will be used to address traffic congestion, another key contributor of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions in cities.
Commercial Solution for Any City
SOLSUN will demonstrate technology that enables cities to reduce CO2 emissions from lighting by between 30% and 50%, and improve the way their city operates, without incurring prohibitively high infrastructure costs.
Existing street light infrastructure will be upgraded to deliver instant energy savings and reductions in GHG emissions, whilst creating a sensory network that can easily be expanded for other non-lighting applications. By allowing developers of connected devices to tap into the wireless infrastructure, and software developers to access data to build new apps and services, the technology also has the potential to become an enabler for the smart cities market.
Convergence of Energy / Transport / ICT
- Public lighting is 60% of council/municipality’s electricity bill
- Road transport equals 20% of EU’s total emissions of CO2; increasing 2.5% per year as number of vehicles rise
- Use of ICT across other city services offer up to 15% reduction in emissions by 2020
The majority of Europe’s streetlights are still powered by traditional magnetic ballasts generating 40 million tons of CO2 annually so addressing this inefficiency alone will lead to significant savings.
The SOLSUN project brings together a strong core of public, private and academic partners with the combined expertise to develop outcomes that can be exploited on a global scale.
Select Innovations Limited (EnLight)
IoT pioneer and Enteligent Technology. Based in Norfolk in the UK we supply energy efficient products to be deployed and enable the Internet of Things’ sensors and devices.
Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME)
Software development tasks; provision of access to third party sensors; application development; co-organisation of hackathon.
Municipality of the City of Budapest
Provision of access to street lighting infrastructure for testing of solutions in the city of Budapest; installation & monitoring of lighting & sensing equipment; trialling of new uses of data.
PANNON Pro Innovation Services Ltd (PPIS)
Co-ordination of partners & deliverables in Budapest; co-organisation of hackathon & dissemination events; market research & recruitment of companies involved in smart & sustainable city solutions. For more on Pannon Pro Innovations visit www.ppis.hu
British Telecommunications Plc (BT)
Supply of server infrastructure for data hub & associated services; testing of solutions in Milton Keynes; organisation of hackathon.
For more information on SOLSUN and Smart City technology please see www.enlight.co.uk, contact EnLight via email: solsun@enlight.co.uk