⚡ Energy

Smart PE-Cell LED Street Lighting Network

Since 2018 the City of Melbourne has converted nearly all of its roughly 15,000 public lights to LED with electricity distributors CitiPower and Jemena. New fittings carry smart photoelectric cells on the utilities' smart-meter network, switching automatically by light level and reporting faults remotely.

Live 📅 since 2018 ◆ Source-checked

🤖 AI-generated summary of the sources below — how this works · 🔎 Last verified 2026-08-01

⚡ Energy Smart lighting Sensors & IoT

🎓 Lesson

The smart layer here is modest — automatic dusk-to-dawn switching and remote fault reporting piggybacking on the electricity distributors' smart-meter network, not adaptive dimming. A true multi-sensor 'smart pole' concept (transport, noise, weather, air quality) exists in Melbourne, but only as an 8-pole pilot in Fishermans Bend, not across the citywide lighting network.

Evidence🏛️ Official

Scale🏙️ City-wide

📖 Terms in this entry: Adaptive traffic signals · Digital twin · LoRaWAN

Sources

↗ City of Melbourne — Improving public lightingOperator's official program page: LED conversion scope, timeline, Smart PE Cell features

↗ City of Melbourne — Smarter Streets (Fishermans Bend)Council consultation page describing the separate, much smaller 8-pole multi-sensor trial referenced for context

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed above and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

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Compare this project

🇦🇹 LED it Shine: Citywide Smart Street Lighting Retrofit · Vienna Both are utility-partnered LED retrofits with smart controls: Vienna dims on schedule, Melbourne switches by light level. 🇺🇸 District Smart Lighting P3 Modernization · Washington D.C. DC financed its 75,000-light retrofit through a $309m PPP; Melbourne's ~15,000 lights run on the utilities' own network. 🇦🇺 City of Melbourne Pedestrian Counting System · Melbourne Another verified project from Melbourne.

Explore the wider context

📟 A Reading Is Not a Decision 💡 Smart lighting guide 🏙️ Melbourne city profile ⚡ Energy projects

📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Smart PE-Cell LED Street Lighting Network” — Melbourne, Australia. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/melbourne-smart-street-lighting/ (last verified 2026-08-01). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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