Duquesne Light to improve operational efficiency with smart lights

Duquesne Light Company (DLC) said it has signed a contract with Itron, Inc. to improve its operational efficiency, modernize its infrastructure and enable smart city application’s with Itron’s smart street lighting solutions.

The company will use Itron’s smart cities central management software, Streetlight Vision (SLV), and its integrated field operations platform, SLV:Go. Along with smart streetlights, the software will improve energy efficiencies and optimize performance, Itron said, through advanced asset management, analytics, and control capabilities. DLC said the system would improve operations by proactively altering DLC if streetlights need maintenance or experience power failures.

“As part of DLC’s vision of a clean energy future for all, we are committed to investing in new technologies that benefit our communities and customers and ensure a more sustainable, equitable future,” said Yvonne Phillips, director of meter operations at DLC. “We look forward to modernizing our lighting infrastructure with Itron’s smart street lighting solution, which will improve asset maintenance and enhance operational efficiency while also enabling additional smart city applications as the need arises in the future.”

DLC provides electricity to more than 600,000 customers in southwestern Pennsylvania. The company said it will deploy about 60,000 Itron mesh-enabled streetlight nodes that would provide two-way monitoring and control for outdoor street and area lighting in Allegheny and Beaver counties. The system also allows for the addition of a multi-application industrial IoT (IIoT) canopy able to support additional smart city and smart utility sensors and applications, Itron said.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with DLC to deploy a smart lighting solution that will proactively meet the needs of tomorrow, today,” said John Marcolini, senior vice president of Networked Solutions at Itron. “With our solution, DLC will be able to save energy and improve asset management with real-time visibility into every streetlight while simultaneously laying a foundation for future IIoT and smart city use cases.”