West Midlands Council’s 2030 vision includes connection of over 11,000 lights by 2022
Image by Michelle Walker
Cambridge, UK 15th May 2019: Telensa, the world leader in smart street lighting and smart city applications, today announced that it has been selected by Sandwell Council 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 highly efficient Light Emitting Diodes (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.
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.
“We are delighted to have been chosen by Sandwell to play an instrumental role in their connected street lighting project and look forward to working with the Council to ensure a smooth transition to the new technology,” said Will Gibson, founder and Chief Commercial Officer at Telensa. “This deployment further expands our presence in the West Midlands where a true commitment is being shown to the promise of smart city technologies by forward-looking Councils who are now reaping the economic and efficiency benefits that they can provide.”
“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 organisation 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 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 and 130,000 tonnes of carbon.
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 streetlighting, the company provides cities and utilities with an open, low-cost platform to add multiple sensor applications. Working with Microsoft 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.
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Richard Howson
Temono Communications
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