The Surrey County Council in England has approved the replacement or retrofit of 89,000 street lamps for an annual expected savings of 7700 tonnes of carbon emissions, 6 million kilowatt hours of electricity, while also saving council taxpayers £480,000 ($670,000 US).
The three-year project, which is being managed by Skanska, will see the installation of energy efficient LEDs across the count., The county will also upgrade its existing CMS (central management system) so that it has the capacity to grow and adapt to the region’s ongoing needs. The improved CMS will give authorities access to data that enables them to better manage the county’s lighting in terms of safety, energy use, and maintenance. The CMS will remotely monitor and manage the new lights – ensuring that they’re functioning and also being able to dim them either automatically or manually for more energy savings. It will also be capable of aiding in other areas – such as traffic control, air quality, environmental monitoring, and flood management.
“The biggest challenge in completing a project such as this is the successful commissioning of the new CMS, whilst simultaneously decommissioning the old system. This particularly can present challenges in monthly energy settlement,” said Simon Woodford, business director at Skanska.
Skanska is working with Urban Control – a smart city solutions specialist – to align the delivery program with the decommissioning of the old CMS. To avoid system down-time and protect the system throughout the process, replacements are being made on a ward-by-ward basis.
Being able to retrofit some of the lighting infrastructure has provided further savings.
“As the Surrey PFI (private finance initiative) is only 10 years old, it meant that there were in the region of 60,000 lanterns within the network that were perfectly serviceable,” added Woodford.