Dutch Indian designer Chintan Shah has invented a technology for ‘smart street lamps, ‘Tvilights’, which glow brightly only when they sense the presence of people, bicycles, or cars, slashing energy costs by almost 80 percent. They dim on their own otherwise. The technology to distinguish between people and smaller animals like cats, dogs, and mice, to avoid lighting up unnecessarily, has also been developed. Tvilights are already in place in four municipalities of Holland and one in Ireland, as well as on the Netherlands’
Delft University of Technology campus, where Shah first designed the system as a student. Exploring the possibilities of its use are countries like Israel, India, Turkey, Australia, Japan, and the USA.
Shah began researching this idea after a flight abroad. He noticed street lamps lighting empty and desolate streets. Shah discovered that Europe’s street lighting power bill alone amounted to 13 billion dollars a year. This led him to invent the intelligent lighting system using wireless sensors to conserve energy. Tvilights not only conserve energy costs but reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent.
