Dunedin's streetlights get smart

New Zealand’s Dunedin City Council (DCC) will light its streets with Telensa’s smart streetlight system, connecting thousands of LEDs via smart city data applications.

Dunedin’s current streetlight network consists of 15,000 high-pressure sodium streetlights that are reaching the end of their useful life. Broadspectrum has been contracted to convert these lights to LEDs, which will be wirelessly connected and managed by Telensa’s PLANet system. PLANet will give DCC control of the streets’ lighting levels, with the lights remotely tailored to suit each location in Dunedin.

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 maintenance efficiency via automatic fault reporting. In addition, streetlight poles will be turned into hubs for smart city sensors.

Telensa founder and Chief Commercial Officer Will Gibson 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.

“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,” he said.

DCC Transport Group Manager Richard Saunders said, “This project shows our commitment to intelligent infrastructure and how we’re delivering a safer, more cost-effective service environment. 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.”

Domenic De Fazio, Urban Infrastructure Chief Executive at Broadspectrum, added, “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.”

The project is 85% funded by the New Zealand Transport Agency, which is fast-tracking co-investment with local authorities in LED street lighting and controls. Following policy changes in 2015, local authorities can replace existing road lights with LEDs and controls immediately rather than wait until they reach the end of their useful life. As a result, several conversion programs have already started including those in Wellington, Whakatane and Upper Hutt.

The Dunedin smart lighting project is expected to reach completion in 18–24 months.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Klanarong Chitmung