New Zealand City of Dunedin Selects Telensa to Deliver Smart Street Lighting for 15,000 LEDs

Wireless control system added to Dunedin’s LED street lighting network in New Zealand

Cambridge, UK 16th July 2019 Telensa, the leading provider of connected lighting and smart city data applications, has announced that its smart streetlight system has been selected by Dunedin City Council (DCC) 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 Light Emitting Diodes (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.

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. 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.”

Richard Saunders, Group Manager 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. 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, Chief Executive 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.”

This project is 85 percent funded by the New Zealand Transport Agency and work is expected to take 18-24 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 programmes have already started including Wellington, Whakatane, Upper Hutt, and more.

About Telensa

Telensa makes wireless smart city applications, helping cities around the world save energy, work smarter and deliver more joined-up services for their citizens. Telensa PLANet is the world’s most deployed smart streetlight solution, with a footprint of 1.7 million lights. Building on the compelling business case for its smart street lighting, the company provides cities and utilities with an open, low-cost platform to add multiple sensor applications. Working with Microsoft, Samsung SDS and Qualcomm technologies in the Urban Data Project, Telensa is helping cities to build future-proof operations driven by data intelligence, trust and transparency. Telensa is based in Cambridge in the UK, with regional operations in the USA and Australia.