Luohe, Henan Province Explores a New Path to Smart and Low-Carbon Urban Lighting
To accelerate the green and low-carbon transformation of urban lighting and continuously optimize the nighttime travel environment for citizens, the Chengshi Lighting Company of Luohe Municipal Group in Henan Province launched the first phase of a pilot project for energy-saving renovation of streetlights in Luohe City. The project systematically upgraded the lighting facilities on five main urban roads: Baiyunshan Road, Huanghe Road, Daxue Road, and Zhangjiang Road. The energy-saving renovation of the lamps and light sources has now been completed.
The project uses high-efficiency LED streetlights equipped with intelligent dimming systems as the core of the renovation, relying on a smart streetlight management platform to achieve intelligent management of urban lighting facilities. Chengshi Lighting Company meticulously organized the project, completing all construction tasks on schedule while ensuring normal road traffic and minimizing disruption to citizens' travel. This provides a replicable and implementable model for the large-scale replacement of old streetlights and the construction of an integrated system of energy-saving renovation and smart maintenance throughout the city.
Light Source Iteration: New Energy-Saving Lighting Fixtures Achieve Both Energy Saving and Improved Public Well-being
This renovation completely eliminated traditional high-pressure sodium lamps, which are energy-intensive and have high maintenance costs, and uniformly replaced them with high-brightness LED streetlights with intelligent single-lamp control functions. The new lamps can be remotely controlled and dimmed according to the lighting needs of urban roads at different times of day. While strictly adhering to urban road lighting design standards and ensuring uniform and stable road illumination, they significantly reduce power consumption. Based on calculations using historical measurement data from local third-party institutions, the overall energy saving rate after the renovation can reach 60%-70% while maintaining lighting quality. The lamps use long-life light-emitting chips and corrosion-resistant protective shells, resulting in a service life far superior to high-pressure sodium lamps, reducing routine maintenance costs such as lamp replacement and wiring repairs from the source. After the renovation, the visibility of traffic on the five pilot roads at night has been significantly improved, effectively strengthening the safety of the public during nighttime travel while reducing public lighting energy consumption.
According to the city's overall lighting system upgrade plan, the replacement of lights on these five roads is only a pilot project. Subsequent phases will involve a comprehensive upgrade of the entire infrastructure across the city: First, citywide light source replacement, completing the renovation of 13,478 old high-pressure sodium lamps on over 60 main and secondary roads, including Longjiang Road, Songshan Road, Taihangshan Road, and Jiaotong Road; second, repair of old infrastructure, including the complete replacement of rusted light poles, aging power lines, and damaged terminals on Changjiang Road and Renmin Road to eliminate safety risks such as leakage and pole collapse; third, the establishment of a digital management system, unifying the numbering and standardized labeling of light poles throughout the city, inputting data such as pole locations, equipment parameters, and pipeline layouts into a GIS geographic information system, and connecting this data to a digital lighting integrated management platform. This will enable remote switching of individual lamps, stepless dimming, automatic fault alarms, and real-time energy consumption statistics, shifting street light maintenance from traditional manual roadside inspections to proactive system-based early warning and precise, targeted repairs.
Smart Hub: Upgrading the Microcomputer Monitoring Center for Integrated Management of Citywide Lighting
Upgrading the microcomputer monitoring center is the core support for the digital transformation of this pilot project and a key to achieving refined and intelligent management of streetlights. The original management system suffered from shortcomings such as fragmented functions, independent operation of individual lamps, lack of data interoperability, and insufficient flexibility in control, making it difficult to meet the needs of modern urban lighting management. To address this, the project simultaneously upgraded the monitoring center's hardware and software. At the system level, technicians completed data integration and functional interoperability between the individual lamp control system and the city's overall lighting management platform, establishing a three-tiered management architecture of central control, zone control, and precise individual lamp control. Managers can flexibly adjust lighting strategies based on day/night cycles, weather conditions, and traffic flow, balancing lighting assurance with energy conservation and consumption reduction, and implementing green city construction requirements.
At the hardware level, outdated, lagging, and unreliable terminals and transmission equipment were completely replaced, effectively improving system stability, data transmission timeliness, and command execution accuracy. The upgraded monitoring center features real-time energy consumption monitoring, equipment operation statistics, intelligent fault analysis, and automatic electronic ledger updates. It can monitor the entire area's street light circuits and fixtures 24/7, supporting refined operation and maintenance with digital data, completely abandoning the extensive management model.
Three-Dimensional Inspection: Establishing an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Airport to Build a Two-Tier Management System of "Platform + Aerial"
Addressing the pain points of traditional manual inspections, such as limited coverage, delayed hazard identification in remote areas, and untimely fault detection, this pilot project simultaneously plans and constructs a dedicated UAV airport to create an intelligent aerial patrol and inspection system, forming a new three-dimensional management and maintenance model of "platform remote monitoring + UAV aerial inspection."
UAVs possess advantages such as mobility, rapid response, and wide coverage. During patrol operations, facility status can be synchronized to the monitoring center in real time, automating the entire process of problem collection, data transmission, and information aggregation. This significantly shortens the entire cycle of fault discovery, response, and repair, comprehensively improving the initiative, accuracy, and efficiency of street light operation and maintenance.
Precision Construction: Standardized On-Site Management Ensures Smooth Project Implementation
The efficient and safe progress of Phase I was made possible by the humanized and standardized on-site organization system of the construction team. Addressing the heavy traffic and congestion on main roads, the project was divided into multiple work teams, adopting a staggered and phased construction model. Safety warning signs were deployed on-site, and traffic management measures were implemented simultaneously to minimize the time spent working on the road. Strict adherence to high-altitude operations and electrical safety operating procedures was maintained throughout the construction process, with the project subject to supervision and management by relevant authorities regarding construction quality and safety. During construction, measured data on energy consumption and road illuminance before and after the renovation were simultaneously recorded, and feedback from citizens was widely collected. All first-hand data was archived, providing reliable data for optimizing city-wide renovation construction standards and improving the energy consumption accounting mechanism of the smart platform.
Through the full-process practical experience honed in the Phase I pilot project, Chengshi Lighting has developed standardized construction procedures and complete installation technical specifications, possessing the capability to implement renovations adaptable to various road conditions and different old infrastructure foundations, thus filling the gap in practical experience for the implementation of the city's smart lighting plan.