Telensa, expert in smart street lighting and smart city applications, announced that it has been selected by the council of Sandwell in UK to provide a smart street lighting solution as part of the region’s 2030 Vision Initiative. The Council plans to install nearly 4,000 lights by 2020, with the intention to increase this to over 11,000 by 2022, which will be wirelessly connected and managed using Telensa’s PLANet system. The Council is also converting all their streetlights to LED as part of the upgrade. PLANet will give the Council control over lighting levels, allowing them to remotely tailor for each location, in addition to energy and maintenance cost savings.

(Image: Telensa)

Telensa PLANet is an end-to-end intelligent street lighting system, consisting of wireless nodes connecting individual lights, a dedicated network owned by the city and a central management application. The system pays for itself in reduced energy and maintenance costs, improves quality of maintenance through automatic fault reporting and turns streetlight poles into hubs for smart city sensors. With more than 1.7 million lights connected, Telensa PLANet is the world’s most popular connected streetlight system.

“Our 2030 Vision project seeks to inspire our residents by creating a local atmosphere in which they can say they’re proud to be from Sandwell,” said Amy Harhoff, Sandwell Council’s Director of Regeneration and Growth. “We are excited to be working with Telensa on a project that will reduce the Council’s carbon footprint and provide crucial financial savings.”

The project is backed by Salix Finance as part of an invest-to save initiative into which the Council is also investing. Thanks to the energy efficient LED lights and smart Telensa controls, the investment is expected to pay for itself within seven years. Salix Finance is the government-funded organization that enables the UK public sector to take a lead in tackling climate change, by providing interest-free loans for energy efficiency projects. Salix has provided over £190 million (US$ 242.47 million) of interest-free funding towards street lighting upgrades with 81 local authorities in England, and those projects are expected to deliver annual savings of over £36 million (US$45.94 million) and 130,000 tonnes of carbon.