UK firm Telensa has struck a deal to provide smart controls to 15,000 LED street lights in the City of Dunedin in New Zealand.
The arrangement is part of a deal by Spanish-owned, Australia-based infrastructure management company Broadspectrum to upgrade the city’s streetlighting network. Broadspectrum is converting around 15,000 high-pressure sodium streetlights on the Dunedin streetlight network to LEDs.
The new LEDs will connect with Telensa’s so-called PLANet lighting system, which will in turn give the city council control over lighting levels, with the lights remotely managed to suit different locations. The PLANet system comprises wireless nodes to connect individual lights, a dedicated network owned by the city, and a central management application.
Telensa said the system will support the LEDs in reducing energy and maintenance costs, while improving the efficiency of maintenance through automatic fault reporting, and turning streetlight poles into hubs for smart city sensors.
Richard Saunders, group manager for transport at Dunedin City Council, said: “This project shows our commitment to intelligent infrastructure and how we’re delivering a safer, more cost-effective service environment.”
The project is 85 percent funded by the New Zealand Transport Agency, which is fast-tracking co-investment with local authorities in LED street lighting and controls. Policy changes in 2015 mean local authorities in New Zealand can replace existing road lights with LED and controls immediately, rather than wait until they reach the end of their useful life.
Telensa has signed prallel deals in New Zeland with the cities of Whakatane, Wellington, and Upper Hutt. Work in Dunedin is expected to take 18-24 months.
Will Gibson, founder and chief commercial officer at Telensa, said: “Cities across New Zealand are increasingly adopting wireless control systems for their streetlights – reaping significant environmental, cost and maintenance benefits as well as providing a platform for future smart city applications.”
Domenic De Fazio, chief executive for urban infrastructure at Broadspectrum, said: “With more than 1.7 million lights already connected, we are confident that working with Telensa will help us to achieve world-class lighting for the city of Dunedin.”
Telensa has recently signed deals with the Port of Tyne and Sandwell Council, in the northeast of England and the West Midlands, respectively. It has also signed with the city of Harrisburg, the state capital of Pennsylvania in the US, and the Australian city of Darwin. It has also been recruited to provide an intelligent street lighting system in a new smart city development, in the centre of Maroochydore, on Australia’s Sunshine Coast, which covers beach resorts and rural hinterland in southern Queensland.
In the UK, its Urban Data Project, which debuted in Cambridge, has gathered partners, including Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Samsung.
Juniper Research claims street lighting upgrades will deliver $15 billion in cumulative energy savings for cities in the period to 2023. These savings will be achieved both by converting lamps to energy-efficient LEDs and by adding connectivity to monitor and control individual lights.
The rise of smart-city platforms are enabling street lighting to act as a “hub point” for additional smart city services, such as public safety and smart transport, it said.
The standard arithmetic says smart lighting delivers a 70-75 per cent reduction in energy costs, with 50 per cent achieved just by switching to LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs, and a further 20-25 per cent eked out with lighting controls. Payback is pegged at around five years
