A wireless street lighting control system is now fully operational across the county of Essex.
Telensa’s central management system (CMS) is connecting 125,000 street lights to a central management system, delivering instant fault detection, improved maintenance, lower carbon emissions and significant energy savings.
Following the recent installation of the 125,000th telecell to a street light, it is believed that Essex now boasts the world’s largest wireless street lighting central management system – with even more lights connected to their system than Los Angeles.
Essex-based company Telensa was awarded the £6.6m contract in 2011 and has delivered on time and on budget, according to Essex County Council. Using Telensa’s PLANet (Public Lighting Active Network) system the council expects to reduce the energy cost of street lighting by around £1.3 million per annum at today’s prices and to cut carbon emissions by over 8,000 tons each year.
Rodney Bass (pictured right), cabinet member for highways and transportation, said: “Telensa’s system has fully met our expectations and has been deployed across the county’s 12 districts in two years and within budget.
“The new system will ensure that we manage the 125,000 street lights more efficiently and effectively to improve service levels while reducing energy costs and helping meet our carbon reduction targets. It also gives us the ability to manage lighting defects more effectively.”
The Telensa system allows the Essex Highways street lighting team to accurately control the switching of every single street light from a central location and provides daily reports on street lights that are not working allowing engineers to correct issues promptly when they occur.
The PLANet system also allows the flexibility to introduce initiatives such as part-night lighting where lights in certain areas are switched off for five hours overnight. This has been successfully implemented in several districts already.
Will Gibson (pictured left), managing director of Telensa, added: “As an Essex-based company we are delighted that our system has been deployed in our home county and I am proud that Essex can now boast that it has the world’s largest street light central management system.”
