With the recent redevelopment of the AMI stadium and the ever closing dates for the starting of the Rugby World Cup, the Christchurch City Council wanted to ensure that the surrounding urban areas of the stadium were something to be proud of – to showcase to the world what can be achieved with a little innovation and clear thinking. This provided the impetus for the Council to implement a progressive approach towards lighting around the streets and urban areas surrounding the stadium, not only for visitor safety, but to enhance the perimeter of the grand stadium, while leading from the front in terms of energy efficiency and control over the street lighting system. Their aims to reduce energy consumption, carbon emissions, light pollution and neighbourhood nuisance, as well as to reduce the operating and maintenance costs associated with public lighting was addressed through the installation of a fully programmable and controllable Phillips Starsense Lighting Control System, utilising Echelon Lonworks power line communication technology.
The AMI stadium is a large capacity facility which has the ability to create large concentrations of pedestrian and vehicle traffic in the immediate and surrounding areas. This raises issues of public safety as well as road traffic management issues that demand high lighting levels to assist with the delivery of road user safety and convenience. However, as the stadium is only in use approximately thirty nights per year, the provision of lighting at maximum levels to the stadium and adjoin roads would be costly and wasteful. The council required a system that would provide for a controlled lighting system, which would ensure the standard of light to be provided based on the use of the stadium.
Christchurch City Council selected a lighting control system with a fully programmable internet based communication system that can “talk” with each light to control switching, shift light levels up and down and to monitor and meter the energy use, carbon emissions, longevity and electrical parameters of the system. The light fittings employ energy efficient compact fluorescent white-light lamps driven by fully dimmable electronic control gear.
The new control system, “Starsense” from Philips Lighting was supplied and commissioned by Mark Herring Lighting (MHL), in coordination with Modus Lighting, and installed and managed by Connetics Ltd. Philips Starsense is a world leading European IT based control system that is being used for road and street lighting management in some of Europe’s largest and most energy conscious cities.
The system accommodates two-way communication and control between each individual light on the network and to a central computer via signalling along the existing mains electrical cabling. In addition to providing the variable lighting facility required for the AMI Stadium night sporting events, the road lighting control system will be a practical user trial test-bed to explore energy use and maintenance cost saving possibilities for other parts of the Christchurch City road lighting network, the largest public lighting network in New Zealand. The communication technology platform, termed “Lonworks”, is a power line signalling protocol that allows devices for different purposes and from different manufacturers to interact with each other.
The compact street mounted internet server computers act as segment controllers to manage the road lights via the electrical circuits and then use a mobile phone data network to communicate with the city’s monitoring centre. The system logs and reports on how much energy the lights consume, the hours of operation and use an internal astronomical clock to calculate the availability of natural light. This data is used to dim some or all of the lights on the network to save energy and also to help extend the service life of the lamps and light fittings.
A centralised computer “dashboard” visual display is available via authorised internet access for Council and maintenance staff for real-time monitoring of the lighting, electrical and energy performance, remotely identifying lamp failures and eliminating the need for roving maintenance detection vehicles. Any “special event” activity such as urgent emergency services requirements can be quickly and easily accommodated by lighting control override via a mobile phone of authorised operations staff.
On nights when there are no events at the stadium (92% of all nights) the system has been designed and programmed to dim light output to the appropriate lighting subcategory (to approximately 60%) with a consequent energy saving of 22% (measured). A very useful saving as road lighting is for most Councils in New Zealand the single largest category of energy use and emissions generation. The Lonworks open architecture communication system for road lighting paves the way for a range of other smart city services to be seamlessly and economically added to the “smart cities” infrastructure. Flowerbed irrigation control, electronic signage control, weather condition, traffic density and pollution sensing can all be added to the existing system with very little adaptation.
Mark Herring, the owner of MHL which supplied the lights and lighting control system stated that he was excited about the results and the performance of the system and ‘has been closely following several street lighting control options and is aware of many trails and installations of this technology in Europe. It’s only a matter of time before New Zealand councils and other larger client’s embrace the benefits that these control systems provide. Saving of both energy and maintenance budget can easily be demonstrated.
Key Benefits to Christchurch City Council
· Reduced energy consumption by 22% (measured)
· Reduced carbon emissions
· Reduced light pollution
· Improved pedestrian safety
· Reduced infrastructure maintenance requirements
· Electricity consumption metering
· Future extensions to other “smart grid” function
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LeafNut provides continual feedback about the operation of the luminaires, it monitors operation, power consumption, provides dimming control and will even predict end of lamp life. “You can actually look at what’s happening to your lighting asset, see if a lamp has blown, see when lamps are near end of life, see if there are any faulty control gear units and much more…then it’s a matter of being able to take steps to address these issues in a planned and targeted way” said Kevin Rose.
