The Australian Smart Lighting Summit 2014 held recently in Melbourne saw
over 40 councils, energy providers, road authorities, contractors and designers
from across Australia meet to discuss new strategies and technologies for energy-
and cost-efficient public lighting retrofits.
Hosted annually by City of Melbourne, the national event was attended by
over 200 lighting industry experts and sustainability consultants, who
participated in a focussed program of presentations, panels and roundtable
discussions to showcase the progress of street lighting projects and highlight
some of the barriers being faced in achieving faster results.
Over 60 Australian councils including Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and
Hobart are currently in the rollout phase or have completed bulk lighting
changeovers, with over 148,000 lights upgraded so far.
Municipal Association of Victoria and Ironbark Sustainability have
partnered to help Victorian councils replace over 232,000 streetlights to
energy efficient alternatives. When completed, the retrofit projects are
expected to deliver a cumulative saving of $431 million through reduced
electricity and maintenance costs. This lighting retrofit initiative has the
honour of being the second largest street lighting project in the world after
New York.
George Angelis, Manager of Infrastructure and Traffic Operations at City
of Sydney presented the city’s LED retrofit success, while Martin Valentine of
Abu Dhabi Municipality gave an international perspective on public realm
lighting strategy and smart lighting technology.
Outdoor lighting control technology was a major focus area at this
year’s summit with a panel session of experts including Rob Evans of Organic
Response shedding light on the maturity of the control technology and a need
for a greater understanding of its importance within current lighting
projects.
Lighting technology suppliers including Philips, Gerard Professional
Solutions, OrangeTek, LEDified and Silver Spring Networks were amongst the
sponsors showcasing the latest solutions at the boutique exhibition.
Charlene Corrin, Conference Producer at Expotrade Global, which
organised the event, said that the summit is a very important platform for
Australia’s lighting industry with local government representatives,
contractors, consultants and manufacturers meeting to discuss regulations and
strategies to achieving the target of replacing over 2.3 million lights across
Australia.
The 3rd Annual Australian Smart Lighting Summit will be held next year
at Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre on 8-9 September 2015.
