Why cities and facility teams are finally treating streetlights as strategic infrastructure
October 18, 2025
By Monte Hartranft, VP of Sales for Evolved Lighting & Energy
The Outdoor Smart Lighting Boom & Municipal Upgrades
When people think about lighting upgrades, the first image that comes to mind is usually an indoor space: offices, hallways, warehouses. But right now, one of the most exciting shifts in energy efficiency and infrastructure design is happening outside.
Across the country, municipalities, campuses, and large facilities are embracing smart, connected outdoor lighting. These systems don’t just make spaces brighter or safer – they’re helping operations teams cut costs, streamline maintenance, and even build the backbone for smart-city capabilities.
Why Outdoor Lighting Is Having a Moment
The growth in outdoor smart lighting is staggering. The global outdoor lighting market, valued at about $17 billion in 2024, is expected to reach $28 billion by 2030 – nearly 10% growth year over year.
And when you zoom in on smart lighting specifically, the projections are even bigger: the global smart lighting market could grow from $22 billion to more than $165 billion by 2034.
What’s driving that momentum? Simply put, the need for efficiency and reliability. Public lighting can account for as much as 40% of a city’s electricity costs, and those budgets are under more pressure than ever.
By switching to LED lighting combined with smart controls, many municipalities are cutting energy use by 50–80%. The savings don’t just show up on utility bills, they also come from reduced maintenance, fewer outages, and better control over when and how lighting is used.
But the real shift goes beyond cost savings. Outdoor lighting infrastructure is becoming intelligent. Smart poles and networked fixtures can now monitor their own performance, detect outages, and even collect environmental data. For facilities and city teams, that means moving from reactive maintenance to predictive insight and turning what was once a cost center into a connected asset that adds long-term value.
What This Means for Operations and Facilities Teams
For facilities and operations professionals, the appeal of smart lighting comes down to three big benefits: performance, cost, and peace of mind.
Facilities that have upgraded to LED and networked lighting systems report stronger, more consistent illumination across outdoor spaces, improving visibility and safety for staff and visitors.
Maintenance demands also drop dramatically. When every fixture reports its own status, it’s easy to plan service proactively instead of waiting for phone calls about dark parking lots.
The financial picture is compelling too. According to Energy Monitor, municipalities that have transitioned to smart outdoor lighting have achieved energy savings of 50–80% and maintenance cost reductions around 50%.
Those savings often make the projects cash-flow positive from year one, especially when paired with utility rebates and federal or state incentives.
And perhaps most exciting for forward-looking facilities teams – smart lighting lays the groundwork for future innovation. The same poles that light parking lots today can power sensors for air quality, parking management, or even EV charging tomorrow. Once the network is in place, it’s easy to scale.
What to Consider Before You Start
Like any major infrastructure project, success comes from planning. A good starting point is a detailed lighting audit to understand what you have. How many fixtures, what wattages, what controls, and what condition your poles and wiring are in.
From there, consider a phased approach. Start with high-impact areas like main drives or parking lots to capture early savings and build internal support. Choose control systems that use open communication protocols (like DALI or NLC) to ensure flexibility and avoid vendor lock-in.
It’s also important to plan for cybersecurity and long-term maintenance, since lighting systems are now part of your broader operational technology network. Smart lighting doesn’t just save energy – it collects and transmits data – so treating it like any other networked system is key.
The Bottom Line
Outdoor smart lighting isn’t just a new technology trend. It’s a rethinking of what lighting can do. For cities and facilities, it’s a way to make spaces safer, operations smoother, and budgets more predictable.
At Evolved Lighting & Energy, we’re helping clients design and implement smart outdoor lighting systems that balance performance, cost, and reliability.
From parking lots to campuses to entire municipal grids, we bring expertise in both the design and the data, ensuring your investment delivers measurable results from day one.
If your facility or community is ready to evolve its outdoor lighting, let’s talk about what’s possible.