Dunedin City Council rolls out smart streetlights

Dunedin City Council is making the switch to smart street lighting as part of its agreement with global smart city solutions provider Telensa.

Telensa, a UK-based organisation with regional operations in Australia and the United States, will install its PLANet end-to-end intelligent street lighting system for the council.

Currently there are approximately 15,000 high-pressure sodium streetlights that make up Dunedin's network. These are nearing the end of their useful life, so they will be replaced with light emitting diodes (LED) lights that will be wirelessly connected and managed by Telensa's PLANet systems.

PLANet is an end-to-end intelligent street lighting system consisting of wireless nodes to connect individual lights, a dedicated network owned by the city, and a central management application. 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.

PLANet will give the council control over lighting levels with the lights remotely tailored to suit each location in Dunedin.

"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," comments Telensa founder and chief commercial officer Will Gibson.

"Following our projects with Whakatane and Wellington, we are delighted to now also be working with Broadspectrum and Dunedin City Council to bring these capabilities to yet another city in New Zealand.

''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," says Broadspectrum chief executive urban infrastructure, Domenic De Fazio.

This project is 85% funded by the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) and work is expected to take 18-24 months. The NZTA is reportedly fast-tracking co-investment with local authorities in LED street lighting and controls. 
"This project shows our commitment to intelligent infrastructure and how we're delivering a safer, more cost-effective service environment," adds Dunedin City Council group manager transport, Richard Saunders.

"We're excited to be working with Telensa and Broadspectrum to make our streetlights smart and to create a platform to deliver smarter, more joined-up services to our residents in the future.

Policy changes in 2015 allow local authorities can replace existing road lights with LED and controls immediately, rather than wait until they reach the end of their useful life. As a result a number of other conversion programmes have already started including Wellington, Whakatane, Upper Hutt, and others.