Smart industries and intelligent living were the main themes of the 2016 China (Chengdu) Smart Industry International Expo that kicked off Wednesday, according to a MoneyDJ report.

Topics and products featured at the show included smart products, smart cities, smart manufacturing, and information security. Other topics touched upon included smart security, and smart homes, which showed China’s resolve to become a leading smart city.

Smart streetlights will become an important infrastructure and portal to smart cities, providing the foundation for WiFi coverage, charging stations, monitoring all sorts of information including surveillance and environmental indicators. Lamp posts can also be used for displays, and other fields can all be realized using smart streetlights. As of 2015, China came up with planning of 386 smart cities that have gradually entered constructions. Following the acceleration of smart city constructions, and wide applications of next generation technologies including IoT and cloud computing, smart LED streetlights are expected to develop rapidly in China. It is estimated smart LED streetlights market penetration in the country will reach 40% by 2020.

Advanced smart streetlights applications are most efficient and reliable when paired integrated with power cables and wireless GPRS or CDMA telecommunication technologies. The streetlights can realize remote control and management, and the systems can regulate luminaire brightness or dimness according to traffic volume, remotely control the lights, include WiFi coverage, and automatically alert managers of faulty lights. Other potential features include anti-cable theft, or remotely recording energy usage, which can greatly reduce power consumption while improving public lighting management. Maintenance costs can be reduced 56% annually by using the smart lighting system.

Data compiled by National Bureau of Statistics showed streetlights in China more than doubled from 10.53 million in 2004 to 23.02 million in 2014. In recent years, lighting energy consumption in China amounted to 14% of total energy consumption. Streetlights and landscape lighting energy consumption make up 38%, and are the largest energy consumers in lighting applications. Traditional streetlights still mostly use high pressure sodium lights, which consume and waste a lot of energy. LED streetlights can lower energy consumption, and reach energy savings of more than 50%. By upgrading to smart LED streetlights, energy savings can be further raised to 70%.