Local Initiatives
An App for Street Light Outages
An electric cooperative in Georgia has made it easier to report a problem street light.
With this smart phone app, Sawnee EMC members can instantly report street light outages. (Photo By: Sawnee EMC)
Sawnee EMC, Cumming, recently launched an application for users of mobile devices to report outages of its approximately 35,000 street lights.
Reporting a broken street light is tricky because “some don’t have addresses or have easily readable numbers,” said Blake House, vice president of member services at Sawnee EMC.
The app, requested by local government officials, eliminates some of that confusion. Now, users of iPhones, iPads, Blackberries or Androids can take a photo of the troubled light and email the image to the co-op.
Even better, the light’s location is often automatically included in the photo, because GPS coordinates are embedded in many smart phone photos, House explained.
“We then email them and let them know it’s been reported and we’ll take care of it. We also let them know when the problem has been taken care of. There’s no dialing in and no need to speak to a customer care representative to report street light issues.”
Developed in-house, the app also enables members to view detailed energy data and access other account information on another platform, in addition to the co-op’s website.
Since the app came online, the co-op can now reach members who regularly use mobile devices, House said. Of some 135,000 members, “we have no way of knowing how many have iPads and smart phones. It depends on the demographics, but it’s growing daily.”
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Tags: Local Initiatives, R&D, Social Media