RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--(Click to Tweet) – Northwest metro Atlanta shines brightly every evening with 60,000 streetlights. Recently, however, an entire section of lights went out for one of Cobb Electric Membership Corporation’s (EMC) commercial members. Using the VantagePoint® Lighting Control solution from Sensus, a Xylem brand, the co-op discovered the issue and sent a crew to check out the situation before their customer could pick up the phone to report the outage.
An early adopter of the Sensus advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) solution seven years ago, the cooperative is now using its existing network to offer smart lighting services. Crews have already installed 1,100 smart lighting modules for some customers, including the lights that lead Friday night football fans to the Walton High School stadium, home of the Raiders, who went undefeated in the regular season.
“When I saw this module, the first thought that crossed my mind was that this device is as close as it can be to the Internet of Things,” said Cobb EMC’s Director of System Quality and Planning, Bhaji Dhillon. “The technology brings us information about the location of the fixture, the quality of light and system power outages.”
Cobb EMC, one of the nation’s largest electric cooperatives, plans to retrofit approximately 60,000 lights to LED in the next five years to include Sensus sensors. These smart sensors can be programmed to turn on whenever a storm rolls in or flash in the event of a public safety issue. If a light is out of service, Cobb personnel will be alerted right away.
During a recent storm, an alarm meter installed at a medical facility triggered in the co-op’s control room. They rolled a repair crew to the location where lightning had blown a phase fuse. The real-time alert functionality of the Sensus AMI solution and efficient repair by the co-op helped keep the equipment from overheating.
The FlexNet® system is part of the only AMI solution that communicates via a dedicated, FCC-licensed spectrum, ensuring secure and reliable data transmissions. The upgraded infrastructure allows Cobb EMC to effectively monitor and manage the distribution of electricity, automate meter reads and proactively detect outages.
Sensus VantagePoint Lighting Control is an intelligent solution that consists of a lighting control module, lighting control software and the FlexNet communication network. This technology enables smart public service providers to remotely monitor and control street and area lights. The module accurately measures energy consumption for each street light.
“We will have better metrics once all the lights start recording kilowatt hours for us,” said Dhillon. “It is going to improve data quality of energy usage by lights for our commercial and industrial customers.”
Read the entire case study to learn how Cobb EMC is doing the most for its members with smart lighting.
About Sensus
Sensus helps a wide range of public service providers—from utilities to cities to industrial complexes and campuses—do more with their infrastructure to improve quality of life in their communities. We enable our customers to reach farther through the application of technology and data-driven insights that deliver efficiency and responsiveness. We partner with them to anticipate and respond to evolving business needs with innovation in sensing and communications technologies, data analytics and services. Learn more at sensus.com and follow @SensusGlobal on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
About Xylem
Xylem (XYL) is a leading global water technology company committed to developing innovative technology solutions to the world’s water challenges. The Company’s products and services move, treat, analyze, monitor and return water to the environment in public utility, industrial, residential and commercial building services settings. Xylem also provides a leading portfolio of smart metering, network technologies and advanced infrastructure analytics solutions for water, electric and gas utilities. The Company’s more than 16,500 employees bring broad applications expertise with a strong focus on identifying comprehensive, sustainable solutions. Headquartered in Rye Brook, New York with 2017 revenue of $4.7 billion, Xylem does business in more than 150 countries through a number of market-leading product brands.
The name Xylem is derived from classical Greek and is the tissue that transports water in plants, highlighting the engineering efficiency of our water-centric business by linking it with the best water transportation of all – that which occurs in nature. For more information, please visit us at www.xylem.com.
About Cobb EMC
Cobb Electric Membership Corporation (Cobb EMC), a not-for-profit electric cooperative, safely delivers reliable electricity to more than 180,000 residential and commercial members in Cobb, Bartow, Cherokee, Fulton, and Paulding counties. Cobb EMC’s distribution system consists of more than 9,000 miles of line over 432 square miles. With more than 200,000 meters served, Cobb EMC is one of the largest of Georgia's 41 EMCs and among the largest of the nation's 900 EMCs. For more information, visit www.cobbemc.com, or follow Cobb EMC on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.
