October 23, 2024
Standards Groups Unify to Simplify Smart Street Lighting
DALI, TALQ, Zhaga collaboration focuses on smart street lighting interoperability
The DALI Alliance, TALQ Consortium, and Zhaga Consortium have entered into a collaboration aimed at unifying data streams for smart street lighting solutions. The initiative seeks to align technical standards for greater interoperability across outdoor lighting systems, simplifying decision-making for cities and other public and private organizations investing in smart infrastructure.
The Three-Legged Stool:
- The DALI Alliance (Digital Addressable Lighting Interface) is an international consortium that develops digital lighting control specifications. Its main work centers on the IEC 62386 standard, which is used in lighting systems worldwide. DALI’s certification programs, including DALI-2, D4i, and DALI+, focus on ensuring that lighting components from different manufacturers can work together within a system. DALI’s standards enable systems to communicate data related to lighting control, diagnostics, and energy use, offering a degree of interoperability essential for complex lighting networks.
- The TALQ Consortium, meanwhile, has established a globally recognized standard for outdoor lighting management systems. Its Smart City Protocol defines how outdoor lighting systems and other smart city technologies—such as traffic monitoring, waste management, and environmental sensors—communicate with each other and with central management software. TALQ’s focus is on providing a standardized interface to manage various systems, which often come from different manufacturers.
- Zhaga is an organization that creates interface specifications for components used in LED lighting, including light engines, sensors, and communication modules. These specifications are designed to ensure that components from different manufacturers are compatible, allowing for flexible design and installation. Zhaga’s work supports innovation in LED technology by promoting interoperability, much like DALI and TALQ, but with a focus on the physical aspects of lighting systems, such as form factors and mounting arrangements.
Unifying Data Streams for Smart Lighting
The collaboration among DALI, TALQ, and Zhaga aims to improve communication across smart street lighting systems by aligning their standards. Each of these organizations focuses on different technical aspects of lighting, but their combined efforts are intended to provide a more unified approach to data exchange and system control. By developing interoperable solutions, the partnership seeks to simplify the integration of smart lighting technologies and reduce complexity for both manufacturers and cities.
The joint work will focus on creating a streamlined approach to managing data generated by lighting systems, such as energy usage, maintenance requirements, and asset performance. This data is essential for cities looking to optimize the efficiency of their lighting infrastructure while reducing operational costs.
Paul Drosihn, General Manager of the DALI Alliance, emphasized the importance of data in lighting systems: “The D4i certification program plays a crucial role in enabling the seamless integration of streetlights into smart city applications, enabling interoperability and sustainability, while gathering critical data for asset management, diagnostics, and energy monitoring.” DALI's standards, such as D4i, are designed to handle the technical demands of smart city applications, allowing streetlights to function as data-gathering points.
Focus on Interoperability
At the core of this partnership is the drive to ensure that different components in smart street lighting systems can communicate and work together, regardless of manufacturer. As cities invest in smart infrastructure, the need for systems that can easily integrate into existing frameworks is growing. DALI, TALQ, and Zhaga aim to address this by providing standards that allow for easier integration and greater flexibility in system design.
This collaboration is expected to lead to improved efficiency for cities implementing smart street lighting solutions. By unifying the way data is handled across systems, the organizations hope to reduce the complexity that has historically accompanied large-scale smart infrastructure projects. In doing so, they aim to support long-term, sustainable solutions for managing city lighting and other urban technologies.
