Sunshine Coast is one of the largest and fastest growing regional economies in Australia. The lighting will be installed in the Maroochydore City Centre development - a new capital city for the region, with smart technology embedded from the outset.
The Telensa pilot is intended to demonstrate the social, environmental and financial benefits of adaptive street lighting. It will also show the potential for adding smart sensors such as for air quality, traffic analytics and waste monitoring.
The CEO of SunCentral, the company overseeing design and delivery of the new Maroochydore City Centre, said the goal was to create a central business district (CBD) for the future that would remain cutting edge for many years to come. “With no legacy infrastructure to remove or replace on the 53-hectare greenfield site, we have a unique opportunity to create a CBD with unprecedented communications and technological abilities,” SunCentral CEO John Knaggs said.
Telensa Planet consists of wireless nodes connecting individual lights together with a dedicated wireless network owned by the city, and a central management application. The company says that the system pays for itself in reduced energy and maintenance costs as well as improving quality of service through automatic fault reporting and offering the capacity to turn streetlight poles into hubs for smart city sensors.
“We’re delighted to be working with Sunshine Coast Council to make street lighting in Maroochydore smarter and more efficient, with a system that will be responsive to citizens’ needs for decades to come,” said Will Gibson, founder and chief commercial officer at Telensa. “We’re looking forward to working together on a new generation of low-cost smart sensor applications, enabled by the city’s lighting network.”
“By making our streetlights smart, Telensa will help us reduce costs and improve the streetlighting experience, as well as providing a platform for smart sensor applications,” said Sunshine Coast Council’s economic development and innovation portfolio councillor, Steve Robinson.
The system is due to be deployed in September.
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