Philips partners Cisco, SAP for smart lighting in cities, offices

Dutch consumer and healthcare electronics giant Philips, that is betting big on India's lighting space, on Wednesday announced two collaborations that promise to make streets and buildings smarter in terms of energy conserving and optimisation.

The pact with Cisco on connected lighting creates new value in energy saving, building efficiency and employee productivity that will be made possible with the Internet of Things, where objects and processes of every-day use are interconnected for optimal use of resources, the company said.

According to Bill Bien, head of strategy and marketing for Philips Lighting, this industry is potentially is a $1-billion-plus market world wide, in which there will be an alliance between two market leaders -- one in smart lighting and the other in connectivity.

The other collaboration announced here is with the German giant SAP to get real-time information from Philips-connected streetlights via various solutions, so that this vital energy-user can be integrated to help cities gather valuable information for its optimal management.

The joint offering combines real-time awareness based on SAP's patented platform with the Philips CityTouch street lighting management system to give planners a 360-degree view of data -- such as street lighting, parking and traffic controls -- to plan better and manage costs, officials said.

"We are changing the lighting space from conventional to the connected. Today, energy saving is precondition to grow," said Eric Rondolat, chief executive of Philips Lighting. In fact, Philips has committed at the ongoing Paris climate change summit to become carbon neutral by 2020.

"The world must set more ambitious goals to improve energy efficiency," Rondolat had said in the French capital on Dec 7. "Faster adoption of LED lighting and a drive to renovate existing city infrastructure and greater use of solar-powered LED lighting would have a huge impact."

According to Philips officials, both these collaborations have a significant impact on India -- in the lighting space, the Indian government has an ambitious plan to replace all conventional bulbs with LEDs, while city-lighting will be a key component in its 100 Smart Cities project.

"Lighting, that is connected to highly secure, reliable IT infrastructure, will form the backbone of the smart office of the future," Bien said at a press conference here. An example: Workers can personalise and adjust the LEDs to their liking, also with smartphones apps.

This is key since studies show lighting is responsible for 40 percent of a building's electricity use, and nearly 80 percent in energy savings and reduced building maintenance can be realised by managing, integrating and controlling the systems with Philips-Cisco solutions, the company said.

The announcements come just a week after the Indian arm of Philips, already a leader in lighting space in the country, announced pacts with two states, Uttar Pradesh and Manipur, for as many as 76,000 solar LED street lights across 800 villages.

The pact with SAP started in Buenos Aires, where Philips is refurbishing 91,000 streetlights with LEDs to interface directly with the former's systems to help the city manage more than 700,000 assets, including streetlights, parks, bus stops, buildings and bridges.

"As a result, Buenos Aires has been able to increase operational efficiency, realise energy savings of over 50 percent and greatly improve safety and quality of life for its 13 million residents," a statement issued at the conference said.

(P.S. Mitra is in Eindhoven at an invitation from Philips. He can be reached at ps.mitra@ians.in)