Montevideo lights up: Smart street lighting for a more sustainable city

In recent years, Montevideo Municipal Government has adopted a strategy to use technology with the aim of improving the lives of its citizens. Using an inclusive and sustainable approach their approach is to provide innovative solutions designed to encourage citizen participation, promote environmental protection and boost the development of public services.

Montevideo is the capital and largest city in Uruguay, and home to over 1.7million people.

The city realised early on that a commitment to generate and use data as a basis for decision making would help them take on numerous challenges. One of these was the upgrade of 70,000 streetlights across the city.

In 2022, NNNCo (a Neura parent company) and technology partner Wellness TechGroup began the deployment of 70,000 new streetlights (connected to 70 LoRaWAN gateway nodes) to the City of Montevideo. The new street light system covers 200 square kms and leverages LED technology combined with a powerful interoperable remote management system. The benefits have been huge.

• The change in technology and remote operability reduce carbon emissions by ~80%
• Moving from halogen to LED represents a 40% cost saving due to reduced energy use, and the fact that LED’s last significantly longer so require less change outs.
• Data insights identified when and where remote dimming of the streetlight network could be performed, saving additional costs of 30-40%.

There is also a public safety benefit, as more streetlights are on for greater lengths of time in what were previously unlit streets or isolated walkways. This allows the community to comfortably access more of the city after dark.

The success of the smart street lighting project was largely down to the combination of a wireless network and application management software that delivers data back to the city to use for decision making. 

As Montevideo lights up its streets with smart technology, the city not only enhances public safety and energy efficiency but also sets the stage for a brighter, more sustainable future, ready to embrace further smart city innovations.

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