Overview
Wakefield Metropolitan District Council (MDC) has pledged to be a carbon neutral organisation by 2030 and a carbon neutral district by 2038. Street lighting offered an opportunity to kick start this pledge with the replacement of its existing lighting with new high quality, low energy, low maintenance LED street lighting.
Working in partnership with Wakefield MDC and our key supplier, Signify, we have transformed the way Wakefield’s lighting stock is managed. The new LED lighting programme is powered by digital innovation and smart technology, allowing Wakefield MDC to remotely control its lighting assets using the ‘City Touch’ platform.
Benefits
Converting up to 45,000 lanterns to LED technology, cutting energy by 85% and carbon by 4,088 tonnes. The LED technology is supported by our innovative solution which combines the 'City Touch' Central Management System (CMS) and the 'Digistreet' luminaire product. The Digistreet lanterns also offer increased performance, efficiency and reliability - allowing us to reduce faults and provide Wakefield with annual savings of £250k in maintenance costs.
The improved lighting quality is proven to reduce the number and severity of road accidents, and incidence and fear of crime. The increased reliability of LED lanterns has improved service delivery performance and minimised disruption for communities, with lamp changes no longer required and significantly reduced maintenance, saving £250k of taxpayers' money annually.
By transitioning to more dynamic ways of working, we have shifted behaviours from 'fault-finding' to asset stewardship. Remote fault detection eliminate night-time inspections; improving operatives' safety, wellbeing and productivity.
Additional savings/improvements include:
- A 22% reduction in faults
- Automated fault detection via the CMS and standardisation of equipment. This has resulted in a reduction in component parts, reducing average repair times by 10%
- Switching to LEDs alone reduces energy consumption /emissions significantly. Real-time monitoring of energy usage via the CMS to optimise efficiency has achieved savings of 85%.
- The CMS allows the flexibility to provide the right light, in the right place, at the right time by acting as a virtual energy meter, allowing the capture of savings from changes to switching times/lighting levels on individual units.
Cllr Matthew Morley, Wakefield Metropolitan District Council’s Cabinet Member for Planning and Highways, said: “We have made an important pledge to become a carbon neutral organisation by 2030 and this project is a big part of our plans to do so. LED street lights not only reduce energy consumption and lower carbon emissions, but they also reduce operational costs, light pollution and automatically identify the majority of faults, so that they are dealt with quickly and more efficiently. They provide better quality lighting overall. This is a really exciting project, which will benefit our residents in lots of different ways.”