The over 303 million streetlights globally help form the backbone of the world’s cities, towns, and highways. Until recently, this corner of the municipal infrastructure market had largely been ignored, but streetlights are now viewed as a critical asset to unlocking billions of dollars in smart city potential. Previously viewed as a major cost - up to 40% of a city’s energy budget - streetlights are now viewed as a revenue opportunity. This study analyzes this suddenly dynamic market and forecasts the market for energy-efficient street lighting, streetlight networking, and additional smart city applications attached to streetlights through 2028.
The starting point for this transformation is LED streetlights, which offer longer lifetimes, lower energy consumption, and reduced maintenance expenses when compared with legacy streetlight technologies. Costs for LEDs have now mostly bottomed out, and the business case is clear. LEDs will be the dominant technology for street lighting going forward, and savings from LEDs will help drive additional applications. LEDs are further supplemented by streetlight controls. Networked streetlights accentuate all of the savings benefits of LED street lighting, while also improving public safety and putting in place a communications and software infrastructure that can be utilized for further smart city applications. Cities and utilities with smart streetlights are now exploring ways to both improve urban efficiency (through smart parking, environmental sensors, waste management, and other applications) and increase revenue (through licensing agreements with telecom operators, monetizing urban data collection, and more). While most smart city applications remain at the pilot level, cities are in agreement that smart street lighting is a critical first step to open up these opportunities.
As with any dynamic market, challenges remain. Cities must work both with utilities and regulators and between municipal departments to ensure that the benefits of smart streetlights are realized. Meanwhile, a rapidly evolving vendor landscape, including new technology options, highlights the importance of recently developed standards organizations. These challenges can partly mask what is a clear business case for most cities in the world, one that ensures cost savings, environmental benefits, and improved public safety. But these benefits are now increasingly becoming understood, which will lead to LED and smart streetlights to reach a projected 85% and 24% of the total streetlight market, respectively, by 2028. This will total a $50.4 billion market opportunity over the next decade.
Key questions answered in this study:
- What is the market share of the leading smart streetlight vendors?
- What new applications are being attached to streetlights and how large will the market for these applications be?
- How are cities looking to monetize urban data to fund smart city projects?
- How are new communications options affecting the smart streetlight and smart city markets?
- Who are the key vendors throughout the smart streetlight value chain?
- What hurdles to smart street lighting have been overcome and which ones remain?
Table of Contents
i. Executive Summary
1. What’s new in 2019?
2. The benefits and challenges of LED and smart streetlights
3. Market forecast
4. Regional overviews
5. Vendors
6. Appendix
6.1 Methodology
6.2 LED and smart lighting overview
6.3 List of abbreviations and companies covered
List of Figures, Boxes, and Tables
Global LED and smart street lighting: key takeaways
Figure 1.1: Smart city infrastructure potential by segment
Figure 1.2: Recent Americas smart streetlight projects
Figure 1.3: Notable EMEA smart streetlight projects
Figure 1.4: Notable Asia-Pacific smart streetlight projects
Table 1.1: Notable smart streetlight vendor acquisitions and restructurings since 2017
Figure 1.5: Global streetlight nodes market share(end of 2018)
Figure 1.6: Global streetlight nodes market share(deployed and announced)
Figure 1.7: Global streetlight communications market share(end of 2018)
Figure 1.8: Global streetlight communications market share(deployed and announced)
Figure 1.9: Metropolitan Area Planning Council (Massachusetts) smart streetlight bids
Table 1.2: Streetlight communications comparison
Table 2.1: LED streetlight costs and benefits
Table 2.2: Smart streetlight costs and benefits
Figure 2.1: Smart streetlight benefits in high income, high electricity price country
Figure 2.2: Smart streetlight benefits in low income, low electricity price country
Table 2.3: Additional benefits to smart streetlights
Table 2.4: Streetlight financing options
Table 2.5: Challenges to implementing smart and LED streetlight projects
Table 3.1: Total number of streetlights
Figure 3.1: Annual investment in LED and smart streetlights
Table 3.2: Annual investment in LED and smart streetlights
Figure 3.2: Cumulative investment in LED and smart streetlights
Table 3.3: Cumulative investment in LED and smart streetlights
Figure 3.3: Global LED and smart streetlight penetration rate
Figure 3.4: Average cost per streetlight of smart LED projects
Figure 3.5: Cumulative LED streetlight forecast with installation separate
Figure 3.6: Regional LED streetlight forecast (annual)
Table 3.4: Annual LED streetlight forecast data
Figure 3.7: Regional LED streetlight forecast (cumulative)
Table 3.5: Cumulative LED streetlight forecast data
Figure 3.8: Regional smart streetlight forecast (annual)
Table 3.6: Annual smart streetlight forecast data
Figure 3.9: Regionalsmart streetlight forecast (cumulative)
Table 3.7: Cumulative smart streetlight forecast data
Figure 3.10: Cumulative forecast of additional smart city hardware on streetlights
Figure 3.11: Cumulative combined streetlight value (LED, smart&additional hardware)
Figure 4.1: Notable smart streetlight activity in North America
Table 4.1: North America key info
Figure 4.2: Annual investment in LED and smart streetlights in N. America
Figure 4.3: Cumulative investment in LED and smart streetlights in N. America
Figure 4.4: Notable smart streetlight activity in Latin America
Table 4.2: Latin America key info
Figure 4.5: Annual investment in LED and smart streetlights in Latin America
Figure 4.6: Cumulative investment in LED and smart streetlights in Latin America
Figure 4.7: Notable smart streetlight activity in Europe
Table 4.3: Europe key info
Figure 4.8: Annual investment in LED and smart streetlights in Europe
Figure 4.9: Cumulative investment in LED and smart streetlights in Europe
Figure 4.10: Smart streetlight vendors based in Europe
Figure 4.11: Notable smart streetlight activity in Eurasia
Table 4.4: Eurasia key info
Figure 4.12: Annual investment in LED and smart streetlights in Eurasia
Figure 4.13: Cumulative investment in LED and smart streetlights in Eurasia
Figure 4.14: Notable smart streetlight activity in Middle East & Africa
Table 4.5: Middle East & Africa key info
Figure 4.15: Annual investment in LED and smart streetlights in Middle East & Africa
Figure 4.16: Cumulative investment in LED and smart streetlights in Middle East & Africa
Figure 4.17: Notable smart streetlight activity in East Asia
Table 4.6: East Asia key info
Figure 4.18: Annual investment in LED and smart streetlights in East Asia
Figure 4.19: Cumulative investment in LED and smart streetlights in East Asia
Figure 4.20: Notable smart streetlight activity in South and Southeast Asia
Table 4.7: South and SoutheastAsia key info
Figure 4.21: Annual investment in LED and smart streetlights in South &Southeast Asia
Figure 4.22: Cumulative investment in LED and smart streetlights in South &Southeast Asia
Figure 4.23: Notable smart streetlight activity in Oceania
Table 4.8: Oceania key info
Figure 4.24: Annual investment in LED and smart streetlights in Oceania
Figure 4.25: Cumulative investment in LED and smart streetlights in Oceania
Table 5.1: Notable smart streetlight vendor acquisitions and restructurings since 2017
Figure 5.1: Global streetlight nodes market share(end of 2018)
Figure 5.2: Global streetlight nodes market share(deployed and announced)
Figure 5.3: Global streetlight communications market share(end of 2018)
Figure 5.4: Global streetlight communications market share(deployed and announced)
Figure 5.5: Streetlight nodes market share in the Americas
Figure 5.6: Streetlight communications market share in the Americas
Figure 5.7: Streetlight nodes market share in EMEA
Figure 5.8: Streetlight communications market share in EMEA
Figure 5.9: Streetlight nodes market share in Asia-Pacific
Figure 5.10: Streetlight communications market share in Asia-Pacific
Figure 5.11 Smart street lighting vendor landscape
Figure 5.12: Additional smart city vendors by segment
Figure 5.13: Smart lighting value chain
Figure 5.14: Smart streetlight communications and controls vendors by type
Table 5.2: General LED lighting vendors
Table 5.3: LED component vendors
Figure 6.1: Streetlight directional control
Table 6.1: LED streetlight benefits
Figure 6.2: Response to LED streetlight projects from US survey
