How Cornwall Council saved £26m in 10 years with remote streetlight management…
Background:
In 2009, Cornwall Council worked with the Lucy Zodion team in order to undertake a street lighting programme that would help the authority reduce energy consumption and increase cost savings, simultaneously. As a result Cornwall Council deployed Lucy Zodion’s Vizion® Central Management System (CMS), in a network of over 53,000 streetlights. This means that the Council was given total control over their entire street lighting scheme, accessible via an online cloud based interface, for quick and simple programming and management.
At the time of installation, the scheme was a bold move and Cornwall Council was seen as a trailblazer in the ‘smart street lighting’ movement. Even now, many UK councils are still following in Cornwall’s footsteps.
Since the countywide installation, it has been reported* that the scheme has helped the Council save £26million in energy costs, to date, and a reduction in carbon emissions of 5,500 tonnes of CO2 a year. In addition to this, the Council has recently been looking into how it can further improve efficiencies via street lighting and has made the decision to switch out their existing luminaires with modern, low energy LEDs.
Challenge:
As part of the upgrade, Cornwall Council needed to keep its key objective of cost-saving in mind, so required a solution that is both future-proof while utilising the existing street lighting infrastructure and CMS that is currently in place.
Key Objectives:
- Energy efficient – Linking to cost reduction, Cornwall Council is dedicated to improving energy efficiencies and sees that the evolving technologies used in street lighting can help. One of the main objectives is to ensure new LEDs improve energy efficiencies further.
- Future-proof – Due to such evolving street lighting technologies, Cornwall Council required a solution that would easily integrate with existing and future systems.
- Low cost – As the main aim of the project was to save costs, the solution needed to be cost effective to ensure optimum savings are made.
The solution:
A retro-fit program is now underway with approximately 10,000 LED Gear Trays set to re-purpose existing Urbis Evolo and Sapphire luminaires, per annum. Lucy Zodion’s intelligent street lighting platform, Vizion®, and the hardware that supports it, uses DALI which enables the Council to retain and continue to use the Vizion® ballast nodes currently installed.
Results:
By retaining the existing Vizion® CMS platform and supporting hardware, it means that the new LED fixtures can be integrated with minimum outlay and disruption – helping the Council compare the cost savings gained from the those in the new scheme with those currently awaiting switch-out. This also means that the Council can track and monitor performance of both discharge lighting and LEDs (while the roll-out is taking place) to understand other ways they can save costs.
- Energy Efficient – The switch-out to LED will make the Council’s street lighting scheme much more energy efficient as, by their very nature, LEDs are white light source which use 60% less power to provide adequate illumination. However, as described above, the gradual switch-out of the programme and retention of Vizion® give the Council a further advantage in that a single platform can be used to monitor and control both LED and discharge lighting, helping the Council better understand what programmes are the most efficient at each stage of the roll-out. Throughout the entire lighting network the Council can use the dynamic control system to dim the lights to 70% & 50% if required, or programme various lighting networks with different dimming levels to monitor the exact energy consumption of the units.
- Future-proof – This roll-out has proved that the Vizion® system is future-proof, as it works harmoniously with both traditional discharge luminaires and modern LED styles. Ballast nodes have the advantage in that they are concealed within the luminaire, with only the antenna visible externally, which preserves the appearance of decorative or heritage luminaires. In the case of Cornwall’s scheme, this was an added benefit. The solution can be integrated from new with modern lighting schemes that employ only LED lanterns; flexible to user requirements and future schemes. Dimming control of the LEDs is achieved by DALI rather than WiMAC, where the two systems co-exist in harmony with Vizion®. This is thanks to updated software, introduced since the system was first installed, which understands the difference between discharge lighting and LED lighting behaviours – giving a seamless user experience.
- Low cost – With Vizion®‘s fault reporting features, the Council can reduce operating costs with quick diagnosis and maintenance. Combine this with the various features that allow the Council to manage all (or specific areas) of the entire street lighting scheme and the Council has a one stop platform to assess, evaluate and action the information gathered by a series of Vizion® nodes and collectors. What also makes this project cost-effective is that the Council was able to utilise the existing street lighting infrastructure, both in the columns themselves and hard/software integrated within, which significantly reduces the outlay of materials and reduces the length of the project, thus saving time and resource. Combine this with the £26million already saved, thanks to the existing smart street lighting system, the Council’s bold move has paid off.
Conclusion:
The solution Lucy Zodion provided for Cornwall Council’s LED upgrade was an existing platform, with upgraded software that helped the Council to seamlessly integrate new and old technologies. Taking this further, the current system is now being integrated into Smart City software; part of Cornwall’s Smart Communities platform. This means that Lucy Zodion’s Vizion® system will not only benefit the Council, but will further benefit the community by using data from the street lighting scheme to form smart city initiatives that truly enhance citizen quality of life.
Find out more
For more information about the Vision® CMS system, please click here
