(8 Feb) – The Italian Umpi Elettronica, founded in 1982, is a company specialized in designing and manufacturing smart systems based on the data communication over the mains electricity (power line carriers), and inventor of ‘citymatica’ (smart cities).
Flagship of its technology is the Mynos Sistem, in recent weeks tested by Belgium on 30 of its 1,747 kilometers of highways: an interesting project, with a turnover of 10 million euros. “The Belgian motorway network, one of the busiest in the world, is fully illuminated at night, has special fog lights, and is free – explained Gianluca Moretti, CEO of Umpi -. With our systems, the government may lower the high costs and continue to provide the service”. Belgium is not the only aim of the UMPI. Even Spain is investing in Umpi technologies to combine ecology and higher quality of life. In Spain over 5,200 street lights have already been equipped with the Minos System, and in a short time eight other cities will adopt the intelligent powerline network. “If all the lighting network was fully working, the Spanish government would save 945 million euros, with a turnover for Umpi of about 50 million dollars,” said Moretti. What is the secret of this success? “First of all the Italian reliability – added Moretti -. Everything is done in our country: from patent to production. After that, the advantage of having a young company with an average age of 32 years, a high education, an extensive distribution network, which has 140 employees worldwide and large investments in staff training. It is sufficient to say that every year a 30% of the revenue is reinvested in research and education”. (Ram)
HOW THE MINOS SYSTEM WORKS
The Minos System is the most advanced remote monitoring and control system for the outdoor lighting, capable to control every single lighting point. Through this innovative and unique system, it is possible to have a precise diagnosis about all the lamps functioning status. The Minos also determines the brightness of each point and measure out the electricity used, saving up to 30% of the energy consumption. With the Minos, the public lighting system becomes a communications network, and the lights are turned into “smart street lamps”, hence community services, such as cameras, weather stations, connectivity poles, help points, sensors, tourism information providers, distributors of music and movies. All without any additional infrastructure work or wiring of any kind.