Senior Maintenance Engineer - Electrical Operations

Hello Popsyper

Yes.

Kind Regards....

Spark,

I knew you were smart but I did not know you were a smart Alec.

How would you suggest someone remotely track operational status of streetlights through the electrical cable grid directly to an asset management database in real time?

Hello Ace Boeringa

You are correct in your statement <"....I did not know you were a smart Alec.">

None of my names is Alec, or remotely resemble that name.

I congratulate you on your perspicacious insight.

I did answer the question, as asked by the original Topic Poster.

I do not know whether the process asked about has yet been done commercially, but I was able to think of at least one way to do this, without having to think about it too much, and at least one of the methods I thought of straight away, is not too expensive to implement.

Kind Regards....

this can be possible with Power Line communication.

Yes, it possible and proven, please read:

Archnet is an innovative company specializing in the production and research and development of Power Line Carrier (PLC) products. It provides total solution to worldwide applications of PLC communication technologies, such as Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) Systems for Electricity, Water and Gas utilities, Public Lighting Monitoring and Control Systems, Intelligent Buildings and Estates Management Systems, Standalone and embedded Power Line Modems, Home Automation and SCAD Systems.
We also work together with Meter manufacturers and System Integrators to supply the PLC products on the basis of OEM and ODM arrangements.

http://www.archnetco.com/english/product/biao.htm

Maybe not RFID but more and more utilities are using communication over the powerline for things such as reading energy meters and local control of electrical devices etc.......

They use a monitoring system in large cities for the lamps in traffic lights - this may be via the power supply or data link - might be worth checking on what they use and possibly piggy-back the system - after all, where you have street lamps you usually have a traffic light system.

Monitoring lamps via wireless could be a problem with the amount of wireless users in urban areas. RFID tends to be used at fairly short range so it would be just as easy to drive around and check for lights not lit. In the UK we have a local area surveilance network called 'neighbourhood watch', they look out for crime in their locality so street lighting is pretty important to them - why not co-opt their help to report u/s lights.

I used to work as a SCADA system tech. Based on that experience I would think monitoring every street light by remote means is going to be very expensive. RFID is short range and thus not useful. The cost of utility quality equipment is far more than what is used for applications such as RFID. Power line carrier data transmission has its own technical problems. and the equipment is still expensive. At this point it would probably still be less expensive to have someone drive round taking note of what bulbs are out. The few exceptions being when a video surveillance system operator can be co-opted to help.

The cheapest approach I can think of would be a logical AND input circuit which in turn would trigger a cel phone to cal home if both conditions are not met. Power ON AND current flow ON.

The condition of power comes on and the bulb does not draw current would trigger a cel phone to central reporting a failure.

Cell phones are cheap. The logical AND detector might be cheap enough if made by the thousands so it might in fact be cost efective for a large municipality to install. An assumption is made that a suiytabel powr supply can also be riged to avoid needing batteries.

I like the cell phone idea, but you'd need to make sure the reliability of the monitoring circuit and cell phone. You'd want each monitor to call home periodically to show it was still alive and well.

My electric company has 45,000 outdoor lights in rural areas and the lights are relatively cheap. A monitoring system needs to be fairly cheap. Our customers pay for the lights and tend to call us when they go out. We have people in the field all day who could check if the light is burning, but the problem is they are not usually out at night, when the light should be on.

Maybe a network of wireless sensors forming their own network might offer the solution to your requirement. Each node located close to a streetlight would send a message in case of a bulb failure. The message could then propagate from node to node until it reached a central point. The message could then be forwarded to a server via a standard network for further servicing.