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Jamaica Public Service Company Limited (JPS) is an integrated electric utility company and the sole distributor of electricity in Jamaica. Along with the provision of electricity, JPS is a key partner in national development. The company has a vibrant corporate social responsibility portfolio and has a strong environmental focus. Undertaking one of the largest projects of its kind in the region, JPS is utilizing TerraGo StreetlightOps to convert 105,000 legacy HPS streetlights to smart, energy-efficient LED and improve the efficiency of maintenance operations.
At the beginning of the project, JPS was using a manual data collection system, meaning that someone had to prepare a spreadsheet and go through to verify all of the data by hand, then upload the spreadsheet into Itron SLV (Streetlight.Vision) roughly once a week. There was no real time updating of streetlight data, which meant that there was no way to share the data in real time between the field crews and back office systems. With such a large volume of GIS data, they needed the ability to, in a real time manner, commission the streetlights in SLV and manage them right away.
“TerraGo StreetlightOps helped us better share and manage data, which enabled us to work smarter, deploy faster and improve our operations.” – Dameon Brackett, JPS Project Engineer – Grid Modernization
With TerraGo StreelightOps, fully integrated with Itron’s SLV platform, it became easier to collect and manage streetlight data, including the location of the lights, as well as all other data associated. With the lights being smart themselves, they become the data producers, and with the data collected from them, JPS was able to drive all other operational activities. Future decisions are based on the information received from these data points.
With the original deployment of StreetlightOps “Gen4”, JPS was able to meet all of their needs in terms of integration and managing all of the teams on the project. Maintenance activities before StreetlightOps were based on a paper system – teams would go out with sheets of paper indicating where they were going. Now, supervisors and coordinators could track exactly where field crews are going from a tablet. In turn, the field crews could use any mobile device to track all of the streetlights. The data uploaded to StreetlightOps showed them which lights weren’t functioning, the type of failure and steps to restore. The app also enabled them to control lights directly from their mobile device, so they can tell precisely which lights are out and which lights are working.
Since upgrading to StreetlightOps “Gen5”, JPS was able to convert over 2,000 lights within the first two weeks. The “Gen5” has been the perfect tool to increase the rate of conversion to accelerate energy savings. StreetlightOps allowed crews to immediately see if a light was successfully commissioned, and provided improved feedback from SLV. TerraGo’s software allowed JPS to bring CMS activity into the hands of the field crew in real time.
“TerraGo brings CMS capabilities into the hands of the field crews, allowing them to see data and get feedback in real time, minimizing errors, and saving us time and money.” – Dameon Brackett, JPS Project Engineer – Grid Modernization
Today, JPS has approximately 15 field crew personnel using TerraGo StreetlightOps, as well as 10-15 supervisors and coordinators. In total, there are around 40 users of StreetlightOps, enabling JPS to connect field crews and office personnel while synchronizing data in real-time across systems.
With TerraGo StreetlightOps, JPS was able to eliminate paper forms and manual data entry utilizing spreadsheets, reducing time and expense, as well as eliminating errors. JPS has also been able to increase the rate of streetlight conversion, thus accelerating energy savings and other benefits, while laying a strong foundation for them to expand the project beyond smart street lighting to advanced smart city applications.
“One of the things we can boast about in terms of how we are implementing Gen5 is that we are taking an agile approach to it, not in name only but in action. Each piece is a usable piece that can deliver immediate, usable results.” – Dameon Brackett, JPS Project Engineer – Grid Modernization