Imagine strobing streetlights warning you that a tornado is bearing down on Chattanooga.
Think about those lights flashing in waves to signal the proper direction of an evacuation route in the event of a nuclear or hazardous materials alert. What if the streetlights also could hold plug-in crime surveillance cameras and real-time pollution monitoring sensors?
Well, the possibility isn't decades away. It's now -- but only in Chattanooga.
"The world's smartest lights are made in Chattanooga," proclaims the Web page of Global Green Lighting Inc., a company of Don Lepard. The long-time Chattanooga resident and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga graduate is moving jobs here from China to make the most of his company's innovative streetlights, tested first at Coolidge Park.
Last week, Mayor Ron Littlefield touted Coolidge Park's "smart" streetlights to a visiting conference. He said Chattanooga could save $1.5 million on its annual $11 million electric bill by expanding that technology to all of the city's streetlights.
But the mayor's chief of staff, Dan Johnson, has even higher hopes for a lighting system he says he's "sold on."
"I think the savings is approximately 50 percent, and the streetlights portion of our bill was $4 [million] to $4.5 million in fiscal 2010," Johnson said. "We've been looking at this for months, and I think in the long run it won't cost the city any money. We'll have some front-end startup expenses, but within six months, we'll start saving money."
The deal isn't finalized yet. Johnson and Lepard say negotiations are continuing. But requests for bids have been issued and Global Green Lighting won the nod.
"Basically, [retrofitting] the lighting in the entire city is a huge project, and we're going to take that in steps," Johnson said. "But if everything was done at once, which it won't be, it would total about $20 million."
While the lights may slice the city's power bill $1.5 million a year, EPB's Harold DePriest said it's kind of a wash for the electricity distributor.
"We give the city a pass-through for the streetlights. We sell them that power for the same price it costs us," he said. "Plus, [saving energy is] the right thing to do."
About 80 of those jobs will be imported from China, where Lepard previously contracted for the solid-state components used in Global Manufacturing Alliance Group, the electronics repackaging business he started nearly 15 years ago in Soddy-Daisy.
But Lepard, and David Crockett, head of Chattanooga's Office of Sustainability, have still bigger job plans: streetlight recycling. And smart-light training.
After all, what's going to happen to the thousands of lights being replaced? And who knows how to program and control lights using software programs?
"Sure, we could just take out the old lights and sell the ones that work to another town," Crockett said. "But that doesn't really take that light off the grid, it just makes them somebody else's big energy user."
He said the city will train public works and police officials to "make the most of the new lights."
"But we won't stop there. We hope to export that new knowledge, and train people in other municipalities as they get the new lights," said Crockett.
No comments:
Post a Comment