Echelon Corp. (ELON) Announces Partnership with ITOCHU and Mitsui for Street Lighting Control System Pilots in Japan

Echelon, the world’s leading open standard energy control networking company, announced several leading Japanese cities are now piloting street lighting management systems based on technology from Echelon after witnessing the company’s successful demonstration of intelligent street lighting control in the Japanese technology city of Tsukuba in 2011. The piloted systems are configured on the open ISO/IEC 14908 standard and implemented using Echelon’s Power Line Communications (PLC) transceivers and segment controllers. ITOCHU Corporation, an Echelon partner, has installed the second phase in the city of Tsukuba. This project was accomplished in cooperation with Panasonic and Toshiba, major Japanese lighting device manufacturers.

As Echelon’s master distributor in Japan, ITOCHU also collaborated with a new market entrant, Mitsui & Company, for two pilot sites. Mitsui has installed the systems in the city of Higashi Matsushima, part of the earthquake damaged region of Tohoku, and at the campus of Hiroshima City University in the city of Hiroshima. The deployed ISO 14908 based solution supports a variety of luminaires ranging from LEDs from Toshiba and GE to Ceramic Metal Halide lights from GS Yuasa. Implementation of street light management systems further lower energy use and reduce the cost of operating the street light infrastructure.

The change-out of High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lamps to dimmable LEDs is lowering per lamp electricity consumption by more than 50% or nearly 120Kg of CO2 per year, and is expected to save approximately $240/year in places like Hiroshima, where rising Japanese prices now make it comparable to high cost Asia-Pacific locations like Australia and the Philippines. The use of the new technology allows for the setting of dimming schedules, based on weather and traffic patterns, and delivers 20% to 30% of the savings relative to just shifting from HPS to LED. The system also increases public safety by allowing all pilot lamps to be monitored from a central city location so that failures can be identified and responded to quickly.

“In addition to reducing energy costs and maintenance costs, the use of a standards-based control system allows the cities to manage life cycle procurement costs by providing them with a choice of luminaires, an expense that is often more than 80% of the cost of the project,” commented Varun Nagaraj , Senior Vice President at Echelon Corporation. “We are excited to be partnering with ITOCHU and Mitsui – two of Japan’s leading solution providers – and look forward to larger roll-outs across these cities over the next few years.”

For more information on Echelon Corporation, please visit www.echelon.com

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