Weekly column from Council Courier e-newsletter by CEO Greg Hallam, Friday 28, April 2017.
I'm really proud of the fact the LGAQ continues to push business and technology boundaries as we did this week with the formal launch of our bid to buy, or long-term lease the state’s street lighting network.
No small thing indeed, rather it's a red-hot crack at being the first state or province in the world to attempt a smart community roll-out of a ‘new array of things technology’ at street level.
Leading is not for the feint hearted. But then we have previously delivered on both the very large Home Waterwise and Climate Smart programs in the last decade. Following on from innovations such as LG Online, LGM, LGW, LGIS, Propel and Resolute IT in earlier decades. It’s in our DNA to be leaders.
The written request to Energy Queensland for formal talks was sent two months ago, to which we sadly haven't even had acknowledgment. In truth, the LGAQ had spent months before that socialising the idea around the corridors of power.
LGIS has done the grunt work - undertaking the attached feasibility study for SEQ councils, funded by the LGAQ. We have long looked at cities around the globe (pun intended) who have rolled out street smart technology. We are borrowing the best of breed from across the planet:
Smart lights and motion sensors that cut electricity consumption by at least 40%- environmental sensors
- Wi-Fi networks
- Electric cars and mobility device charging points
- Security cameras where necessary
- Digital advertising
- On-street parking systems and even programmed road maintenance based on asset surveillance.
Amazing. It is quite literally a game changer.
We want to do it for ALL Queenslanders, and within a handful of years. Not incrementally and piecemeal across the state. The LGAQ is proposing a big leap forward.
It's our organisation’s mantra in action - Connect. Innovate. Achieve. Or put another way, a classic example of building better communities - smarter, cleaner, greener and faster.
The good thing is Queenslanders like it. The ReachTEL polling makes that very clear. Come on Energy Queensland and State Government - seize the moment and support the chance to be a real ‘smart state’ from north to south and east to west.