Puerto Princesa Gets Smart With Its Lights
Article by Coni Tejada
Palawan's capital, Puerto Princesa City, is proof that beauty and smarts can really go hand in hand.
The local government is improving the city's lighting infrastructure to keep the island up and buzzing long after its residents have turned in for the night. To do this, the City of Puerto Princesa partnered with MServ, a Meralco subsidiary that offers end-to-end energy and urban services.
MSERV helped the city administrators decide on smart LED lamp posts. This type of street lamp offers brighter illumination, lower energy needs, longer product life cycle, and reduced light pollution. But more importantly, this particular smart LED street lamp can be virtually connected to a dashboard that monitors such things as consumption, outages, and trouble areas in real-time.
The data collected like energy consumption, traffic congestion, and carbon dioxide levels help local governments create solutions and programs to address these problems.
Phase one of Puerto Princesa’s lighting project started in early 2019 with MSERV installing 700 smart LED street lamps along the main roads and side streets of barangays San Pedro and San Manuel. Just a few months in, Puerto Princesa City Hall already reported a lower crime rate, fewer accidents, and a rise in fun nighttime activities that further boost the local economy.
Moving forward, these smart street lamps also serve as the backbone for other smart city solutions such as CCTV monitoring, WiFi accessibility, and electric vehicle charging. They pave the way for the second-largest city in the Philippines, and no doubt, a favorite of tourists for its natural beauty, to become one of the country’s first smart cities.
Story originally posted on Power Club. To learn more about MSERV and its services, contact your Meralco Corporate Partners through corporatepartners@meralco.com.ph or call 16210.