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The city of Syracuse won the Smart Cities North American Award for sustainable infrastructure in the latest International Data Corporation Government Insights awards, according to a press release Tuesday from Mayor Ben Walsh.

The award category recognizes progress in smart water, lighting, waste collection, environmental monitoring and resiliency. Walsh’s program, Syracuse Smart Street Lighting, won the honor, beating out the cities of San Jose and Riverside, California.

Syracuse converted its street lights to energy efficient LED lights in 2020 as part of Walsh’s Smart City Initiative.

The city saved an estimated $3 million annually in energy and maintenance costs and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 8,500 tons per year due to the initiative, the release stated. The lights provide programmed dimming ability, energy metering, fault monitoring and additional tools for emergency services through on-demand lighting levels. This makes street lights energy efficient by adjusting the amount of light emitted based on the amount of people in an area.

“Our smart city initiative is a forward-looking infrastructure program that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and saves money,” Walsh said in the release. “It makes it possible for us to deliver other improved services, including sensor-enabled road temperature and air monitoring to assist with snow and ice removal.”

The shift toward energy efficient lights came as one of several implemented changes Syracuse made as part of Syracuse Surge — an economic growth project that intends to use technology to revitalize the city. Syracuse also began the construction of a science, technology, engineering, art and math high school in 2021.

“In the future, we will add new sensors and devices to further expand our smart city operations,” Walsh said.

Published on March 21, 2022 at 11:15 pm

Contact Anthony: [email protected] | @anthonyalandt