The 50 newly-installed smart lights will help the city government save on power bills, Mayor Lucilo Bayron said during the inauguration of the project.
Bayron led the inauguration of the project that is located along Libis and BM roads.
He said the city once owed the Palawan Electric Cooperative (PALECO) P32 million in the electric bill that the power cooperative wanted to be paid in three months.
“From then on I am already looking for ways on how to light up the entire city. We have to look for a prestigious company who will not run away from its obligation,” Bayron said on March 5 during the inauguration.
It was when the city government decided to shift to using light emitting diode (LED) bulbs from the existing ordinary lights along Rizal Avenue that there was a “dramatic decrease” in the city’s electric bill, Bayron said.
Records of the City Engineering Office (CEO) showed that the project is worth P99,864,000 and sourced from the 20 percent development fund of 2018.
The contractor of the urban street lighting project is the Manila Electric Company (MERALCO) and the Signify Philippines formerly the Philips Lighting.
A total of 688 LED Smart bulbs will be installed by Signify Philippines for this project, Bayron said.
Jagan Srinivasan, the country leader of Signify Philippines told Palawan News that their system will allow the controller to remotely access every single light bulb using a computer.
Srinivasan also said the LED bulbs have a life span of 50,000 hours.
“The engineer is going to have that monitored in his laptop. He will know exactly how many hours that streetlight has been burning,” he said.
Srinivasan also said that the smart light has built-in artificial intelligence that could remotely adapt to the city’s level of darkness and activity and adjust its brightness depending upon the need.
This will reduce the power bills when the lights dim by 25 percent late at night when streets are already empty, he said.
