SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Internet of Things pioneer Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ:ELON) is ranked among the top three providers of smart connectivity deployments in a global study of the LED and "smart" networked street lighting market. The independent study was recently published by Northeast Group, LLC which analyzes and forecasts the market from 2016 through 2026, and finds that the next wave of Internet of Things (IoT) investment will take place in the public outdoor street lighting market. According to the report, “Echelon was an early mover in the smart streetlight field.” The company also captured the number one position in Asia-Pacific for installed market share.

According to the study, global investment in public LED street lighting will be $57 billion between 2016 and 2026. Driving this market opportunity is a paradigm shift where legacy streetlights are being replaced with new and more efficient LED, or solid-state lighting technology. These LED streetlights are being networked together with communications to become smart streetlights, creating the foundation for a growing range of impactful smart city applications over time.

“As part of the research for the study, we surveyed more than 100 US cities, towns, and municipalities that were early adopters of LED streetlight deployments, and we found that residents enjoyed more comfortable, adaptive light, law enforcement officials cited public safety improvements and city leaders overall recognized significant energy and cost savings,” said Ben Gardner, President, Northeast Group, LLC. “Given these clear advantages, the business case for LED and smart streetlights has only grown stronger. Our current study projects that LED and smart streetlights will reach 89% and 42% of the total streetlight market, respectively, by 2026.”

The study highlights the fact that communications networks can be used to link additional items beyond streetlights such as traffic lights, parking meters and a number of smart city sensors. Smart streetlights also greatly improve safety conditions because the automated technology alerts officials when street lights go out, so downtime is almost eliminated.

To capitalize on this trend, the Lumewave by Echelon® platform is architected to allow cities to integrate a growing range of IoT applications so municipal systems like crosswalk flashers, emergency call boxes, traffic analysis and human-centric street lighting can work together seamlessly, while improving public safety and creating a more comfortable environment. The Northeast Group report highlights Echelon customer success stories including the following:

Dongguan, China - Echelon and the LONWORKS open protocol platform were selected as the integration and communication system for the city which set out to retrofit alley and streetlights with an IoT infrastructure. It created a system capable of failure alarms, intelligent dimming and energy consumption tracking, as well as the future potential to integrate other smart city applications such as road environment monitoring, crime surveillance and air quality sensors.

Quebec, Canada - Echelon architected a smart streetlight solution that used the existing powerline communications (PLC) technology to manage the city’s bus control system. This strategy is a prime example of leveraging existing infrastructures to create efficiencies with time and cost savings for municipalities.

“The Northeast Group study offers keen insight into the smart streetlight market which appears to be accelerating, driven by the promise of sustainability, security and livability enhancements,” said Ron Sege, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Echelon. “An investment in Echelon connected infrastructure offers ongoing benefits by enabling a growing range of IoT applications. We’re proud of the solutions that we’ve brought to municipalities around the world over the years and we’re very much looking forward to being a primary player in the growth market identified by Northeast Group.”

Northeast Group, LLC is a Washington, DC-based smart infrastructure market intelligence firm. To order a copy of the study, please visit: www.northeast-group.com

About Echelon Corporation

For 25 years Echelon (NASDAQ:ELON) has pioneered the development of open-standard networking platforms for connecting, monitoring and controlling devices in commercial and industrial applications. With more than 110 million devices installed worldwide, Echelon’s proven, scalable solutions host a range of applications enabling customers to reduce energy and operational costs, improve safety and comfort, and create efficiencies through optimizing physical systems. Echelon is focusing today on two IoT (Internet of Things) market areas: Creating smart cities and smart enterprises through connected outdoor lighting systems, and enabling device makers to bring connected products to market faster via a range of IoT-optimized embedded systems. More information about Echelon can be found at www.echelon.com.

Echelon, the Echelon logo and Lumewave are trademarks of Echelon Corporation that may be registered in the United States and other countries. Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

This press release may contain statements relating to future plans, events or performance. Such statements may involve risks and uncertainties, the risk that Echelon's offerings by themselves or combined with other applications or offerings do not perform as designed or do not offer the expected benefits and savings; and other risks identified in Echelon's SEC filings. Actual results, events and performance may differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Echelon undertakes no obligation to release publicly the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

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