City of Jacksonville, JEA Announce Partnership with GE to Pilot Innovative LED Street Light Solution

2015-04-16

Jacksonville, FL - The City of Jacksonville and JEA announced today that they will pilot a GE solution designed to enable a more intelligent city, offering an LED lighting solution coupled with advanced sensors and software that can enhance the City’s operations far beyond the LED benefits. 

By connecting the street lighting infrastructure to the Industrial Internet, citizens, visitors, and city employees will benefit from access to real time data that never existed before. The pilot will focus on increasing efficiency through energy savings and better asset management of streetlights.

“Jacksonville is excited to be on the front lines with this pilot project, using new technology to increase efficiency and drive innovation, at no cost to taxpayers,” said Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown. “This is another example of how public-private partnerships can drive innovation and provide a return on investment for our taxpayers. This technology has the potential to transform how our city solves problems by allowing us to use the power of data to drive outcomes that give us flexibility, efficiency and new, creative actions to enhance life in our city.”

Driven by Predix* – GE’s innovative software platform that connects machines, data and people to help improve asset performance management – the software-defined lighting technology will provide a platform for the future development of intelligent city applications that will deliver efficiency for the city and convenience for citizens. 

We are continuously looking for innovative ways to serve the City and our customers,” says Paul McElroy, CEO of JEA. “This pilot gives us a unique opportunity to test a connected solution that both delivers energy savings and expands our services into offering big data.”

GE’s LightGrid™ system, also being piloted, can report energy usage and other operational data of each streetlight through wireless communication. A Web-based interface linked to the lighting controls allows authorized users and owners to remotely visualize real-time performance of their outdoor lighting system. “There’s an App for that!” exclaimed McElroy. “Looking into the future, its promising to see that these new LEDs can deliver App based solutions to the city much like our smart phones do for personal use today.” 

“We’re thrilled to be piloting our most innovative lighting technologies with the City of Jacksonville and JEA,” said Maryrose Sylvester, president and CEO of GE Lighting.  “As the lighting industry continues to transform, GE is committed to delivering the most advanced solutions that will provide value and the greatest outcomes for our customers.  We’re confident lighting combined with big data analytics will have a major impact.”

The pilot project is expected to begin by summer. The City and JEA are considering locations in Downtown and surrounding areas to best optimize the technology for the benefit of the residents during the pilot project.

The City of Jacksonville has utilized public-private partnerships under Mayor Brown to leverage public- and private-sector resources to improve the quality of life in Jacksonville. Past projects include redevelopment in Brooklyn area, collaborations to activate increased exporting and Downtown investment, and support for resiliency and emergency preparedness.

JEA is the eighth-largest community-owned electric utility in the United States and one of the largest water and sewer utilities in the nation providing electric, water and sewer service to residents and businesses in northeast Florida.

*Predix is a trademark of General Electric Company

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• conservation
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• electric