Power outages in streetlights can be caused by many different things:
But of these, copper theft is the most expensive to repair due to the cost of the copper wire and the labor involved.
“Last gasp” is a well-known feature in the utility world. A small charge is retained in a capacitor so that when the power goes out, a signal can be sent. When Ohli nodes with the last-gasp feature are installed in all the streetlights in a street, if the power goes out to a group of lights at the same time there’s a good chance it is the start of a copper theft incident. The police can be alerted, given the GPS location and can apprehend the thieves in the act.
