Echelon tapped for smart street light pilot in San Jose

San Jose, Calif.-based Echelon (Nasdaq: ELON) said today it was tapped by the city of San Jose for a street light project using LED technology to reduce energy costs.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but San Jose said in its 2009 Master Plan that it planned to spend $500,000 on smart street lights this year. The city is seeking additional federal funds to change all of its 65,000 street lights by 2022.

San Jose spent almost $3.5 million in 2008 on energy for street lights. Typically, streetlights comprise 40 percent of a city's electricity bill, according to Echelon.

The pilot project includes 125 lights by June using LED lamps from BetaLED and Echelon's power line networking technology and controllers that allow for remote dimming. The IP network is provided by SkyPilot Communications.

In March, Echelon unveiled an LED street light pilot with San Jose's northern neighbor, San Francisco. An Echelon lighting system in Norway has cut energy use by 62 percent, while Milton Keynes in the UK has reduced energy use by 40 percent. Echelon said systems in Ville de Québec, Québec, and Sénart, France, have cut energy use by 30 percent.

Echelon says its system is based on a single networked infrastructure, which allows real-time notification of outages and the capacity to add other intelligence programs.