There’s a new way of lighting the outdoors that’s about to take Australia and New Zealand by storm! Ahead of worldwide trends to employ more environmentally friendly lighting, LeafNut is a unique lighting control and asset management system. It taps into a growing market according to Australian distributors, WE-EF LIGHTING.
At the recent Light+Building Fair held in Germany, there was a significant emphasis by manufacturers on the development of dimming and control technologies. “This is becoming a very important part of exterior lighting” said WE-EF’s Kevin Rose, “the future for outdoor lighting includes the use of controllable light sources and dimmable electronic control gear; no different to how the market approaches interior lighting.”
LeafNut employs technology developed by UK-based Harvard Engineering. It allows users and managers of exterior lighting to intelligently control their exterior lighting asset individually or collectively. LeafNut is now in use in Europe; the City of Westminster in London has already installed over 1000 units and is installing a further 15,000 points before the 2012 Olympics. The County of Surrey in England has started rolling out some 90,000 points over the next five years.
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.
Not only does LeafNut allow users to identify lamp failures in advance, but it can link to asset management systems that will raise work orders automatically, display fault report’s on a map and email maintenance crews directly. LeafNut can be retrofitted dfbto existing street lighting infrastructures by adding a small antenna to the lamp head. It
plugs directly into a compatible electronic ballast but can also work with magnetic ballasts and LED drivers.
Dimming can be 50% or 75% of nominal light output and can help municipalities meet their carbon reduction commitments and reduce their energy bills. Rose believes the LeafNut system is the only one of its kind in Australia
that is in service, proven and compliant with Australian Standards; and will be quick to take off once its environmental savings are realised. Hobart City Council has invested in LeafNut which is managing a Philips’ Cosmopolis ‘new generation’ metal halide system fitted to WE-EF luminaires’ at Sandy Bay, south of the city centre. Aside from the
benefits in controlling and managing the lighting, the Local Council chose the WE-EF luminaires for their durability in a seafront application.
This installation of 70 luminaires is controlled wirelessly with the user interface being web based; the key point being the absence of software and any concerns about upgrades. The interface is real time with the ability to programme a system ‘live’ on site and witness the changes immediately. Lamps can be programmed to operate at various times of day and night and in various dimmed conditions. A programme can also be over-ridden in the case of special events.
The greenhouse gas emission savings that this represents make LeafNut a system ahead of its time. The European Union has recently introduced the EUP (Energy Using Products) regulation, which stipulates that between now and 2017 all public lighting infrastructure in Europe needs to fall into line with its requirements. Light sources will need to be rated at a minimum of 100 lumens per watt and be capable of being dimmed; importantly, dimmable electronic control gear will be mandatory. This also signals the end of the mercury vapour lamp in public lighting, together with the problem of disposal of its hazardous contents.
Kevin Rose believes that this kind of legislation will filter through to the markets of Australia and New Zealand. “We are already starting to see this in Tasmania; if you look at the New Zealand market you can see this very clearly, they have a real drive towards energy efficiency coming from their government,” said Rose. As the distributor of LeafNut
in Australia and New Zealand, WE-EF can provide a complete package, from supply of lighting hardware to commissioning of the system and ongoing software support.
If you have any queries regarding the WE-EF range of energy efficient outdoor and street lighting products, as the only supplier of these products in the South Island of New Zealand, you should conatc us for more information. We look forward to hearing from you
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