These were the words IPWEA Australasia's President Ross Goyne used to sum up the 3rd International Street Lighting + Smart Controls Conference, held in Brisbane last week.

The conference was a resounding success by every benchmark. About 250 delegates; speakers addressing in-depth and wide-ranging issues from the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, Norway, France and Asia, together with every state and territory of Australia and New Zealand; 30 exhibitors, and three days of everything you need to know about LED lighting and smart controls. The Australian Government, at a senior level, were present at every session.

Assistant Minister Angus Taylor, responsible to the Prime Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation, opened the conference with a strong endorsement of IPWEA and our leadership role in the SLSC programme in partnership with the Australian Government, industry leaders, and peak organisations ALGA, LCA and ENA. He stated that the government will ask IPWEA to convene state and territory workshops later this year of DNSPs, state/territory governments, utilities and local government to take the Roadmap to the next level of identifying what models are working well in which jurisdictions, and what barriers need addressing to facilitate a more rapid deployment of LED lighting and smart controls across Australia.

New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) announced at the conference they were providing an 85% subsidy for NZ Local Government to accelerate the roll out of LEDs. This has been warmly welcomed and undoubtedly will result in NZ leaping ahead in its LED street lighting targets.

The international speakers confirmed that the SLSC Roadmap is “unique in the world” and praised it for its depth of coverage, factual assessment, and insightfulness of its recommendations. We have achieved more than 800 downloads of the Roadmap and it is now cemented as the definitive base document that underpins the Australian Government’s policy and strategy in this area. Industry has also embraced the findings and is afforded clarity of purpose and commonality of direction.

We could not have achieved the success that we did for the conference if it was not for the support and endorsement of our Platinum sponsor, Sliver Spring Networks, and our Gold sponsors Philips and Telensa. Together with our Silver and many other sponsors and trade exhibitors, I would like to say thank you for believing in us and sharing the vision that has now become a reality. IPWEA is proud to have been recognised and applauded for taking the leadership role and delivering the knowledge to industry that is so desperately sought.

As so many delegates asked, “how will you top this next time?”  It's a challenge that we, together with our conference partners SLP of NZ, will willingly accept!

Missed all the action? You can catch up on the conference highlights by searching Twitter for #SLSC17, and view the conference photos by visiting the IPWEA Instagram page. 

Robert Fuller
CEO, IPWEA