Star shines for Harvard's streetlight system

Scalable remote control of street lighting reduces costs for local authorities

Wirelessly controlled

IT service provider Star and street lighting specialist Harvard Engineering have teamed up to provide local authorities with a wireless system enabling them to remotely manage street lights that could cut up to 40 per cent from street-lighting energy bills.

Harvard’s LeafNut system uses WiMAC wireless central management to remotely monitor and control the output of each individual street light. Harvard said the system can save up to £46 and 100kg of carbon emissions per year per street light. It is to be deployed by 30 local authorities covering more than 40,000 street lights.

The system also reduces maintenance costs by identifying lamp problems in advance and predicting lamp failure.

Using Star’s on-demand platform means the service can be scaled up quickly for other local authorities.

A number of UK locations are already up and running with LeafNut, including Hertfordshire, Blackpool, Luton, Suffolk, Westminster, Durham, Sheffield, Monmouthshire, North Somerset, Hartlepool and Plymouth. There are also installations in the Netherlands, Austria, Spain, Hungary, France, Ireland and Australia.