LeafNut lights up Blackpool with £4m contract
A YORKSHIRE engineering company has been awarded a £4m contract to
deploy its innovative central monitoring and wireless control system for street lighting across Blackpool.
The contract follows the decision by Community Lighting Partnership (CLP), working on behalf of Blackpool Council, to award E-ON UK the renewal and ongoing maintenance work of life-expired road lighting, illuminated traffic signs and traffic signals equipment.
Leeds-based Harvard Engineering’s LeafNut allows local authorities to manage their street lighting without having to controversially switch off street lights.
This is done through the use of the LeafNut Central Management System technology which remotely adjusts the output of each individual street light.
With the system street lights can be programmed at different lighting levels corresponding to peak needs such as rush hours and areas of late night entertainment, dimming the lights in times and areas of low need such as the early hours of the morning.
This can save up to £46 per street light annually and 100kg of carbon emissions per street light every year.
Harvard Engineering has spent more than six years developing the system, which has so far been deployed by 47 councils across the world, including Hobart in Tasmania, Westminster, and Zurs in Austria.
With the introduction of the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) and The Climate Change Act 2008 – which has set legally binding targets for an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 – reducing carbon emissions is becoming increasingly important for local councils up and down the UK.
The deal will see LeafNut deployed across 22,000 pieces of apparatus, leading to savings of up to £1m in energy costs a year and more than 2 m kg each year on carbon emissions.
Andy Ashton, PFI contract manager at Blackpool Council, said: “We are very happy with LeafNut not only because of the tangible energy and CO2 savings it will deliver but also because of the whole life support package that Harvard provides with the solution.”
Michael McDonnell, Harvard Engineering’s sales and marketing director, said: “We are delighted that the LeafNut system was chosen for Blackpool. We are proud to have created a revolutionary, environmentally friendly, energy saving street lighting solution which is gaining global recognition.”
