Smart Lighting Infrastructure for 100,000 Points of Light
A scalable model combining smart poles and solar streetlights, applicable to national public energy programs across Colombia and Latin America.
1. The Challenge
Municipalities and national infrastructure programs across Latin America face the same dilemma: modernizing public lighting with centralized management, video surveillance, and emergency response—without blowing the budget by turning every single pole into a fully smart pole. This case study shows how Kototerk designed a technical and commercial solution for a reference project of 100,000 lighting points, distributed across six road and area types (main roads, secondary roads, minor roads, parks, rural main areas, and rural tertiary areas), following the typical guidelines of a national public solar energy program.
2. Solution Principles
● Classification by road type: luminaire power and type are determined by vehicle flow, pedestrian flow, and road width.
● Selective deployment of smart poles: smart poles (camera, SOS button, 4G/5G communication) are installed only at critical safety, traffic, and emergency points. The rest of the network uses standard solar streetlights.
● Unified connectivity: all streetlights connect to the same cloud-based CMS platform via LoRaWAN or NB-IoT networks, enabling remote dimming, on/off control, and real-time fault reporting.
● Cost optimization: smart poles represent only about 6% of total luminaires, concentrating smart-infrastructure investment where it is genuinely needed.
3. Technical Classification by Road Type
Road / Area Type | Width | Qty | Power | Main Solution | % Smart Pole |
Main road | 8 m | 18,000 | 120 W | Standard solar streetlight | 10–15% |
Secondary road | 6 m | 26,000 | 90 W | Standard solar streetlight | 5–8% |
Minor roads | 5 m | 21,000 | 60 W | Standard solar streetlight | 5% (SOS points) |
Parks | ≤10,000 m² | 8,000 | 80 W | Decorative solar light | 8–10% (entrances) |
Rural main area | 10 m | 17,000 | 80 W | Standard solar streetlight | 3–5% (schools) |
Rural tertiary area | 5–6 m | 10,000 | 40 W eq. | 100% standard solar | Not applicable |
4. Connectivity Architecture
Urban zones (main roads, secondary roads, parks): each luminaire includes an NB-IoT/4G communication module, transmitting battery level, lighting status, and faults directly to the cloud platform.
Rural zones and dispersed roads: a low-power LoRaWAN network, with one gateway every 2–5 km, allowing hundreds of luminaires to share the same connection without relying on mobile network coverage.
Smart poles: due to the higher bandwidth required for video transmission, smart poles preferably connect via 4G/5G with fiber-optic backup, rather than the low-bandwidth LoRaWAN network used by standard streetlights.
5. Key Benefits
● Smart poles account for approximately 6.2% of the total, significantly reducing upfront investment compared to a fully smart solution.
● All luminaires are integrated into a single CMS platform, meeting centralized management and dimming requirements.
● Critical safety, traffic, and emergency points retain full camera and SOS-button coverage.
● Rural tertiary roads use a 100% autonomous solar scheme, optimizing marginal cost in lower-density areas.
Have a smart public lighting project in your municipality or country?
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Changsha Kototerk Tech Co., Ltd. — www.kototerk.com
