Ian Dryden, City of Melbourne presenting at Smart Lighting Summit in Melbourne

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Australian Smart Lighting Summit gains traction with Local Councils

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 16, 2015

16th September 2015, Melbourne: Smart lighting technology is beginning to play a compelling role in the development of our cities and local councils. In Australia alone, more than 200,000 street lights have been fitted with LED technology, with dozens of local councils currently in approval of their own smart lighting systems.

Australia has already witnessed the rapid adoption of smart lighting technology in its major cities. Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth and Hobart are all in the process of rolling out their own smart lighting systems, with Melbourne set to replace 14,000 lights over the next five years.

Endorsed by City of Melbourne, The 3rd Annual Australian Smart Lighting Summit was held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre on the 8th & 9th of September 2015 as Australia's premier forum for the discussion of smart lighting and upcoming street lighting opportunities and technologies.

Featuring over 25 local and internationally renowned lighting experts from within Australia, The United States and Canada, more than 150 delegates attended from a wide range of municipality, lighting designers, architects, engineers, consultants, developers and public sector representatives.

Prominent speakers at the event included Leni Schwendinger, Associate Principal at Arup, who presented on the topic of Night-time Lighting for Urban Spaces, Bruce Ramus, Founder and Creative Director of Ramus Illumination, who gave insight in his presentation Light in Motion - Illuminating Our Connections, as well as Bernard Tetu, President of DimOnOff who discussed the topic of Smart Lighting a Backbone for Smart Cities Infrastructure and Internet of Things.

"I've seen the results of many of the designs that I've seen today and it's completely worthy and useful and contributes a lot to the night-time plans and designs that he's done," said Schwendinger.

With attendance of more than 50 local councils across Australia, the summit featured a wide range local government and lighting designers to present on the latest street lighting and urban lighting projects currently taking place within Australia.

Andrea Joyce, Project Manager from City of Greater Bendigo gave her presentation on the Lighting the Regions project, with her role in overseeing the replacement of more than 23,000 street lights in collaboration with 16 local councils within north, west and central Victoria. The transformation is expected to save local councils over $57 million over the next 20 years in maintenance and energy usage.

The summit also featured over 25 lighting manufacturers, showcasing and collaborating with delegates at the exhibitor lounge to explore new lighting technologies. Including some of the biggest names from within the industry, companies such as Sylvania, GE Lighting, Hotbeam, Pecan Lighting, Leadsun, Taskwell, Advanced Lighting, Efficient Lighting Systems, Gigatera LED, Traffic Technologies and others were present at the event.

"I think the great thing is that you have the technology people on the outside of the hall, and you've got council people and engineers, and you've got enough talks that are broad enough that you can stimulate conversation," said Ian Dryden, Team Leader of Industrial Design at City of Melbourne who presented at the Australian Smart Lighting Summit on the topic of the Implementation of City lighting in Melbourne.

Interesting topics discussed at the event include the automation and digitization of our lighting networks, the use of lighting installations to convey a sense of community and safety, as well as available finance strategies for street light LED retrofits through the CEFC which has already committed $1.4 billion towards municipality funding for clean energy.

More than 770,000 people arrive into Melbourne city each day, 50,000 of which come into the city at night. Aside from providing illumination, lighting also plays an important role in conveying safety. Areas once previously deemed dangerous can be transformed into a place of community with the use of bright, white light.

George Angelis, Head of City Infrastructure and Traffic Operations at City of Sydney, gave his presentation regarding his role in the roll out of LED street lighting in Sydney, where 5,753 street and park lights were installed by 2012. The city has accumulatively reduced its energy use by more than 46% since then, contributing toward the 70% reduction in carbon emissions the city hopes to attain by 2030.

"In terms of holding summits like this, it's important for people to share knowledge and to show that although there is fear, that you need to travel with caution, but that it's doable. And that's the important thing. It is doable and it's not rocket science," said Angelis.

"I think it's a great opportunity to get to know people and it's serendipitous when you bump into people. I just met a guy named Rowan who does catenary wire installations. That's something I'm really, really interested in," said Schwendinger.

The 3rd Annual Australian Smart Lighting Summit 2015 was held on the 8th & 9th of September 2015 at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.

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