PSE begins smart street light installations to help customers save energy reduce carbon

BELLEVUE, Wash. (3/31/2021) Puget Sound Energy will begin installing street light control capabilities, also known as smart street lights, to help its lighting customers save money and reduce carbon.

The technology will give PSE municipal customers more choice on how they light up their roads and communities by measuring energy consumption and using adaptive controls to lower usage in specific locations and times of day while also enhancing safety measures.

The smart grid technology will add controls and software to LED street lights to enable two way communication. Smart street lights can be instantly turned on and off or dimmed for benefits like energy conservation or reducing light pollution at night. The ability to monitor each light’s performance means broken and failing lights can be quickly identified and repaired. Because smart street lights can operate more efficiently, customers will be able to optimize their energy use, lower costs and reduce carbon in our environment.

“Our lighting customers told us they wanted more control over their energy usage to save money and reduce carbon, and this technology will help meet both those needs,” said PSE Director of Product Development and Growth Will Einstein. “New technology such as smart street lights will help us partner with our customers to meet their goals and improve the customer experience.”


The customer benefits include:

  • Real time performance monitoring for outage or malfunction
  • Energy measurement that would facilitate metered billing as opposed to flat rate billing
  • Remote control for dimming, turn off and turn on
  • Uses less energy through dimming and reduces carbon as a result


The City of Bellevue will be one of the first to receive the installations. PSE will be replacing around 300 roadway lights in some of Bellevue’s arterial roadways with LED lights. It’s part of the city’s overall effort to reduce its carbon footprint.

“We value innovation as a community and so appreciate that PSE partnered with Bellevue as one of the first two cities to receive new smart street lights,” said Mayor Lynne Robinson. “In addition to energy efficiency and cost savings, it has the potential to help PSE respond more quickly to burned out lights owned by the company. It will be a positive safety boost for our Vision Zero effort to eliminate serious-injury and fatal crashes on city streets by 2030.”

Smart street lighting installations will also soon begin in the City of Edgewood with the installation of about 50 smart light controllers.

“The City of Edgewood is excited to partner with PSE to incorporate Smart technology for immediate two-way communications and control of our street lights,” said Edgewood Mayor Daryl Eidinger. “This control will give us feedback for malfunctions and allow us to reduce our usage, light pollution and our carbon footprint.”

Other cities within PSE’s service area will also be able to engage with PSE on controls. PSE has partnered with Landis + Gyr to equip 25,000 street lights with smart controls over five years.

This is another way PSE is working together with customers to create a clean energy future for all as the company has also set an aspirational goal to be a Beyond Net Zero Carbon company by 2045. PSE will target reducing its own carbon emissions to net zero and go beyond by helping other sectors to enable carbon reduction across the state. Partnering with municipalities in its service area will help towards that mission.

For more information on the smart street lighting program, visit www.pse.com/streetlights.


Media Contact:

Janet Kim, 888-831-7250, psenewsroom@pse.com


Puget Sound Energy is proud to serve our neighbors and communities in 10 Washington counties.
We're the state’s largest utility, supporting more than 1.1 million electric customers and nearly 900,000 natural gas customers.
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