The City of Helsingborg in Sweden is implementing Itron’s CityEdge portfolio as the initial phase of its programme of creating a smart city. It will deploy Itron Networked Lighting Controllers (NLCs) on the initial phase of their 30,000 streetlights, and various sensors throughout the city which employ Itron central management software.

The implementation is part of the City of Helsingborg’s Action Plan for Street Lighting and IoT 2021-2027. The aim is to upgrade its lighting system and modernise operations with more energy-efficient and smarter solutions.

With Itron CityEdge central management software and an initial 670 Itron NLCs embedded with wireless communications, the city can remotely control and monitor its streetlights. Deployment is projected to begin in early 2025.

Using the intelligent dimming feature of the NLCs, the city can adjust the brightness of the streetlight based on the time of day and/or traffic volume, helping to increase the safety of the community and creating better visibility at night. The smart streetlights have outage alarms that alert the maintenance crews of streetlight outages via the CityEdge platform software, which can be accessed through the web and/or mobile device.

Deployment of the Itron solution aligns with Nordic Innovation, an organisation under the Nordic Council of Ministers that supports the prime ministers’ vision that the Nordic region will become the most sustainable integrated region in the world by 2030.

As the CityEdge platform is an open ecosystem, the platform can support a range of smart city devices and use cases. Beyond smart lighting, it can support a variety of use-cases within several domains, including traffic and highways, public safety, environmental and sustainability and energy.

“The City of Helsingborg was named one of Europe’s most innovative cities in 2020. Upgrading our streetlight operations is an important step on our journey towards an even more innovative city. Like many cities across the world, the City of Helsingborg is addressing challenges related to sustainability and climate disruption. We pride ourselves on establishing a high quality of life for our community and we do that through continuously seeking our new solutions to make our city more innovative, sustainable and accessible”, said Alexander Svensson, chairman of the urban planning committee in the city of Helsingborg. “As we begin modernising our lighting and infrastructure across the city, we look forward to leveraging Itron’s CityEdge portfolio and exploring the possibilities of creating a data-driven and vibrant city.”

“It’s known within our industry that public lighting can consume a vast amount of a municipality or city’s energy budget. Smart street lighting, contributes to solving challenges related to public safety and unnecessary energy consumption, that cities such as Helsingborg face. Our CityEdge portfolio will benefit Helsingborg by enabling the city to lower its energy consumption while improving quality of life for its citizens,” said John Marcolini, senior vice president of Networked Solutions at Itron. “The CityEdge platform is a leader in the market and chosen by more than 500 communities across the globe for good reason. Its open ecosystem design enables cities to address new or local challenges as they arise. Deploying this solution for the first use-case sets cities up for the future as they can continuously address new challenges all within a single platform.”