UK firm Telensa will provide an intelligent street lighting system in a new smart city development, in the centre of Maroochydore, on Australia’s Sunshine Coast, which covers beach resorts and rural hinterland in southern Queensland.
Telensa, a specialist in connected street lighting, will deploy its PLANet system as part of a 24 month pilot in the Maroochydore City Centre development, as well as on Evans Street in Maroochydore. The system brings adaptive lighting and creates a sensor platform for further applications.
Sunshine Coast is one of the fastest growing regional economies in Australia. The local council wants the Maroochydore City Centre development as a new ‘capital city’ for the region, with smart technology embedded from the outset.
The Telensa pilot will demonstrate the social, environmental and financial benefits of adaptive street lighting, said Telensa.
Telensa’s PLANet proposition includes wireless nodes to connect individual lights, a dedicated wireless network owned by the city, and a central management application.
The system pays for itself in reduced energy and maintenance costs, said Telensa, and enables automatic fault reporting. It also offers a platform for additional smart city sensors, including for air quality, traffic analytics and waste monitoring.
The system is due to be deployed in September. Telensa has connected more than 1.5 million smart city lights; the company reckons PLANet is the most popular connected streetlight system.
Steve Robinson, the economic development and innovation councillor for the Sunshine Coast Council, commented: “Telensa will help us reduce costs and improve the street-lighting experience. This deployment is another example of the Council’s commitment to intelligent infrastructure.”
John Knaggs, chief executive of SunCentral, the company overseeing design and delivery of the new Maroochydore City Centre, said: “With no legacy infrastructure to remove or replace on the 53-hectare greenfield site, we have a unique opportunity to create a central business district with unprecedented communications and technological abilities.”
Will Gibson, founder and chief commercial officer at Telensa, commented: “We’re looking forward to working together on a new generation of low-cost smart sensor applications, enabled by the city’s lighting network.”
