The City of Sonsonate in El Salvador became the first city in Latin America to adopt GE's intelligent lighting system, a powerful combination of white light LED fixtures and GE's LightGrid, a web central management system designed with municipalities and transportation departments in mind. The new intelligent system allows incremental savings in the electricity bill by controlling the lighting level of the fixtures, and by scheduling specific times for the lights to be on or off.

Sonsonate is a conjoint project by AES El Salvador, UNITAPE LATINOAMERICA and GE Lighting. It encompasses more than 4,000 LED fixtures to replace the entire lighting system of the city, including the Municipal Stadium "Ana Mercedes Campos".

The City of Sonsonate in El Salvador lit with intelligent LED streetlights at night. (All photos courtesy of GE)

"The city of Sonsonate will be the first one in Latin America to install the Lightgrid system on its streets and avenues, providing a world-class service with all the advantages of the LED technology and the innovation that characterizes all GE products. The bet made by the government will assure a high quality illumination for its population during the years to come", said Carina Orellana, Commercial Director for Strategic Accounts of AES El Salvador. 

After an in-depth study of the lighting needs to provide Sonsonate with a guaranteed and updated public lighting system, the ideal combination was the Lightgrid system with the LED ERS and ERX models integrated into fixtures of the type Nema Head and Cobra, which highlight the urban landscape. This proposal provides savings above 50% in energy consumption compared to the current obsolete and depreciated system of 175 Mw mercury lamps, as well as reduction of maintenance costs.

The City of Sonsonate in El Salvador.

The mayor of Sonsonate, Roberto Aquino, expressed his satisfaction with the project. "Illumination is a central part of the city's quality of life; it is what allows people to enjoy public spaces after leaving their jobs and feeling safe. The adoption of an advanced lighting system is a commitment to improving citizens' life in Sonsonate".

Among other benefits of AES CLESA, Unitape and GE's proposal, appears the improvement of the existing lighting levels, by obtaining better visual uniformity and a bigger quality in the lighting service for the inhabitants of this city.

On his hand, Mariano Pitta, Unitape CEO for Latino America, highlighted his satisfaction with the project: Sonsonate is undoubtedly one of the most emblematic projects of Unitape' mission, which, nowadays, is focused on developing and building the most efficient energy saving systems for El Salvador and Latin America. We are proud of being part of such a positive change and with such reach as the Sonsonate's retrofitting, which certainly has laid a milestone in this country's history of and become a benchmark for the rest of the region.