Telensa, the UK-based smart street lighting and smart city solution provider, announced that its smart streetlight system has been selected by Dunedin City Council (DCC) in New Zealand as part of a contract with Broadspectrum to upgrade Dunedin’s streetlighting network.

There are approximately 15,000 high-pressure sodium streetlights on the Dunedin streetlight network. These lights are reaching the end of their useful life and are being converted by Broadspectrum to LEDs, which will be wirelessly connected and managed by Telensa’s PLANet system.

PLANet will give DCC control over 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 the efficiency of maintenance through automatic fault reporting, and turning streetlight poles into hubs for smart city sensors.

(Image: Telensa)

Will Gibson, founder and CCO 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. 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.”

This project is 85 percent funded by the New Zealand Transport Agency and work is expected to take 18 to 24 months. The Transport Agency is fast-tracking co-investment with local authorities in LED street lighting and controls. Policy changes in 2015, means 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 programs have already started including Wellington, Whakatane, Upper Hutt, and more.