Smart Street Lighting
In November 2019 Essential Energy in partnership with Council commenced deployment of LED streetlights to replace old and inefficient streetlight technology.
As of February 2021 more than 5,600 streetlights (about 95% of Bathurst streetlights) have been upgraded to LED luminaires, delivering improved streetlight quality across the city and villages, and reducing Council’s spend on streetlighting by almost 60%.
The new luminaires are ‘Smart Control’ enabled, meaning that they are designed to accept a smart controller which can monitor and control the operation of the streetlights. When coupled with a communication network the smart street lighting controls will be able to:
- Accurately measure electricity consumption;
- Remotely monitor and report on performance (fault notification);
- Support a wide range of asset management functions;
- Maintain constant light output over time;
- Trim excess lighting output; and
- Adapt lighting levels to meet community and Council needs.
The Southern Lights group of councils and Essential Energy are currently in the process of procuring streetlight smart controls and a communication network. When procurement is complete smart controls will be deployed across the Bathurst streetlight network as funding allows. A network of about 200 streetlights will also have a second smart control or ‘Zhaga’ port which will enable future smart city applications to be deployed as they are needed. Some applications which are possible are traffic counting and environmental monitoring. Many Zhaga compatible sensors are still in the development phase and Council will trial various sensors as they become available.