Petra Solar, a global technology provider for the renewable energy, energy efficiency, and distributed power generation markets, announced that it has changed its name to Petra Systems.

Petra Systems will leverage the expertise developed over the past eight years as the core technology supplier to the world’s largest mesh networked distributed power plants. Expanding the strategic focus beyond solar generation, Petra Systems will deliver intelligent, efficient, and remotely managed energy networks for smart city applications to be deployed by municipalities, transportation authorities and utilities.

In addition, Petra Systems introduced its newest product offering, the Petra Smart City Solution (Petra SCS), a fully integrated smart pole system that connects streetlight, energy generation, surveillance, data, and communication networks to a city’s public works department.

“Electricity bills from streetlights are one of the largest expense line items for municipalities today, and cities recognize the benefits of LED retrofit programs to reduce their overall energy consumption,” said Steve Rhoades, Chief Executive Officer of Petra Systems. “We see an even greater opportunity to increase this value and strengthen smart city project economics through an integrated technology platform approach that combines the value of energy savings from LED Retrofits and LED Light Controllers with the revenue generated by solar power production.”

As part of the Petra SCS introduction, Petra Systems has launched the Municipal Pilot Program (MPP), giving qualified municipalities the ability to deploy a proof-of-concept pilot network consisting of up to ten Petra SCS systems at no charge.

The fully integrated Petra SCS system not only lowers municipality’s energy bills, it delivers smart city networks that can be used to capture, communicate and analyze data at little to no additional cost.

The Petra SCS system includes:

• Smart light controller comprised of smart transceivers that control individual streetlight ballasts

• A grid-connected solar power generator that leverages the industry’s most mature and proven Microinverter technology

• Wireless networking capabilities with multiple bandwidth options

• Streetlight network gateways

• Battery backup to manage operations during grid interruption

“As the world leader in pole-mounted renewable energy solutions, Petra Systems is built on a foundation of field tested and proven technologies,” continued Rhoades. “With Petra SCS, we take technology and service innovation to its next level, helping municipalities build intelligent, sustainable, resilient and economically sound smart city networks to enhance the services they provide for their communities.”