San Jose, Calif., plans to convert 125 lights in the city’s Hillview North neighborhood by June 2009 in its second LED streetlight pilot project. The new streetlights will use energy efficient LED lamps equipped with the locally based Echelon’s power line networking technology and segment controllers.

The LED Streetlights connected with the Echelon’s intelligent controls for smart networks can help reduce energy and maintenance costs while improving light quality, decreasing light pollution and providing increased safety, according to the company.

The pilot project is part of the San Jose’s Green Vision, a 15-year plan to transform San José into a world center of clean technology innovation, to promote environmentally sustainable practices and to reduce energy use. The city is seeking funds from the federal government’s stimulus package to install additional lights, with plans to change all of its 65,000 streetlights to a new energy efficient system by 2022. With the new system, almost 40% energy use is expected to be saved.

The pilot LED streetlights can be remotely dimmed late at night to save energy and to reduce light pollution, a key concern for the Lick Observatory, an astronomy research center located just east of the city.

The LonWorks control network reports on the status of the lights in real time to help identify problems early. The system can notify maintenance crews when a streetlight is out and measure various operating conditions, such as the number of burning hours, which help to significantly reduce maintenance costs of the system.

Because the system is based on a single, networked infrastructure, future enhancements could include message and traffic intelligence programs to move traffic more efficiently. The system could “strobe” the lamps on and off to help emergency response teams easily locate the site of an incident.

The LED streetlights in the pilot program are BetaLED units embedded with the vendor’s power line signaling technology, which allows communication and control of the streetlights over the existing power lines. Echelon's i.LON SmartServer acts as the segment controller, monitoring and controlling the streetlights from anywhere over an IP connection. The wide area network is provided by SkyPilot Communication’s metro Wi-Fi service.