Why Everyone May Soon Be Adopting Smart Sensor Technology

San Diego is an innovator in smart sensor technology, but others are quickly catching up. Last week, we reported that the city has partnered with Current by GE to adopt a smart city program whereby smart sensors installed on 3,500 street lamps will collect and disseminate data to citizens and a variety of city departments. The technology has the potential to really revolutionize cities, real estate and development, and already others are taking note. Current by GE has already started working with the Port of San Diego and the City of Portland, as well as Georgia Power.

Cities that own their utility poles are the best candidates for the program. “There are some cities that own their own streetlights and some that do not,” Austin Ashe, co-founder and general manager of Intelligent Cities at Current by GE, tells GlobeSt.com. “San Diego owns all 65,000 of their streetlights, and so it is very easy for them to adopt a program like this. Portland is another city that we just announced is doing a big project with us, and they own their own streetlights.”

Cities that do not own their own utility poles, however, will have to partner with their utility company. The City of Atlanta is an example Current by GE is working with Georgia Power to provide the service to the city. “In a city like Atlanta, the nodes are sitting on the utility poles. In this case, the utility is Georgia Power, and they procured the sensors and they are providing it as a service back to the city for a fee,” explains Ashe. “We foresee that someone like Georgia Power will be able to their city constituents, and run smart cities as a service program. Any mayor that wants this utility but doesn’t own its own streetlights but wants this technology, they just have to call up their local utility in the case of Georgia. So, we are talking to a lot of utilities about their assets and educating them about how valuable this is.”

The most exciting application of smart sensors, however, may be in development. Developers have contacted Current to include the sensors on a development site to collect pertinent information. “The commercial real estate angle is interesting. We are starting to see developers that want these sensors in their properties,” says Ashe. “Some of them are calling the city and asking for data on pedestrian flow or traffic flow because it will help them plan the development better. There is a really interesting correlation developing around how this data gets used by commercial real estate.”

Any hesitation to adopt this technology would likely stem from the cost. It sounds expensive—but its not. In fact, in San Diego, the program is cash flow positive. “We packaged this technology has part of our LED retrofit,” says Ashe. “We went to the pole one time, and we changed out the old inefficient lights that were very maintenance intensive to LED lights that require almost no maintenance and saves 50% of the energy. By cutting the energy down, we are saving $2.8 million a year in energy for the city. We were able to take that energy savings and apply it to the sensors. It became a self-funding project. I think the total spend for everything was $30 million, but it is self funding because we wrapped it around a financing program and the energy savings pays for the financing and then some. There is actually a little bit of cash flow positive left in there.”