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How L7 Drive turned light poles into smart poles
Street lighting is just one function of a pole that is connected, remotely controlled and monitored — they become virtual power plants.
L7 Drive
Customer context
Backup batteries in 5G smart poles sit idle most of the time. L7 Drive wanted them to earn money for the pole owner.
L7 Drive built smart poles together with 26 direct LuxTurrim 5G ecosystem partners, from Nokia to Teleste and from Caruna to Vaisala. A light pole becomes a smart pole, where street lighting is just one function: the poles are connected to the internet, controlled and monitored remotely, carry 5G base stations and form the digital backbone of a city.
Thousands of people have already seen these smart poles live, at the Dubai World Expo and at the Nokia Campus in Karaportti, Espoo, Finland. The development phase of the smart pole, the data platform and the related smart city services was completed successfully, and the ecosystem moved on to commercialization.
What the solution gives each group
Pole owners and cities
Backup power for 5G and lighting, monitored and managed remotely.
Energy market
The battery fleet is controlled in real time as a virtual power plant for grid balancing.
Operators
Battery, lights and pole conditions managed from one cloud and admin UI.
L7 Drive
Backup batteries become an asset that can earn income between outages.
- Booster Cloud
- Pole controller IoT module (CAN, Ethernet, DALI)
- L7 Drive cloud and admin web UI
The full storyThe challenge · The SADE approach · Technology · Business outcome
The challenge
Smart poles carry 5G base stations and backup batteries that guarantee the power supply during blackouts. Most of the time those batteries sit idle, and looking after a network of many small batteries in the traditional way, with service staff making rounds from one pole to another, regularly and repeatedly, would be cost inefficient. The poles had to be connected to the internet, controlled and monitored remotely, and the batteries had to be put to work.
Why the obvious solution was not enough
A fleet of poles needs more than visibility. L7 Drive wanted to control the poles individually and in groups, set limits for the battery charge levels, and use the batteries to even out peak demand in the power grid, all in a secure manner and configurable as the customer wishes. That takes a connectivity module in the pole, a cloud and an admin application designed together.
The SADE approach
SADE Innovations became part of the LuxTurrim 5G ecosystem through its client L7 Drive. SADE implemented the IoT connectivity module of the pole controller (electronics and firmware), the L7 Drive cloud and its admin application for controlling the poles remotely from a web browser. The base of it all is the SADE Booster IoT Asset.
Technology and delivery
- IoT connectivity module of the pole controller: electronics and firmware (CAN, Ethernet, DALI)
- L7 Drive cloud based on the SADE Booster IoT Asset
- Web admin application for controlling the poles remotely
- Secure monitoring and control of the poles, individually and in groups, with settings configured as the customer wishes
- Limits for the battery charge levels: a pole can stop using grid power and switch to battery power
Business outcome
- The poles are monitored and controlled remotely, individually and in groups
- Backup batteries are looked after remotely instead of service rounds from pole to pole
- Poles can switch to battery power when needed, which evens out peak demand in the power grid
- In the LuxTurrim 5G pilot the batteries were used also for peak clipping and as a virtual power plant, so that backup batteries can earn income between outages
What happens next
After the development phase, the LuxTurrim 5G ecosystem moved on to commercialization. The smart pole is more than a pole: it is the digital backbone of a smart city, where 5G base stations, video cameras, radars, lidars and sensors for air quality or carbon dioxide measurements come together as natural development opportunities for new applications.
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