Light Control Case Study


Advanced Public Lighting Control System



There are many activities involved in creating lively, safe and sustainable space in a modern city. Similar to well-arranged pavements, good roads, and other accessible amenities, an important part of all public spaces includes lighting. It is, in fact, one of the primary aspects of urban planning. Good city lighting contributes to increased safety, alongside with being one of the primary factors influencing transformation of cities into more sustainable operations.


Challenge


Over the course of the last few decades, the planning and design of lighting have changed, bringing forth the transformation from road lighting to lighting focusing more on pedestrians, which includes parks and other public spaces. All these factors led to increased energy consumption and an increase in the overall lighting system complexity, which in turn created demand for more sophisticated lighting control system.

Belgrade’s public lighting company “Javno osvetljenje” operates a relatively old system, which is getting harder to maintain and run. The system is unable to detect breakdowns automatically and notify operators in the headquarters if something goes wrong alongside a specific corridor, boulevard, park, playground area, etc. Information about malfunctions is often received through citizens phone calls, and fixing problems is slow and inefficient, requiring additional manpower and higher costs. Since “Javno osvetljenje” does not generate profit, they decided to cut expenses by deploying a system that can be used for monitoring and control of the public lighting infrastructure.

Netico provides a modern light control sensor NTLC (Netico Light Control), based on the NTPM110A smart power sensor, and together with “Javna rasveta” Belgrade implemented a pilot project, targeting the following requirements:

• High reliability
• Automatic light control based on two independent calendars
• Each calendar must be configurable with the 1-minute time resolution
• Possibility to override calendar based automatic control and switch lights remotely by operators in the dispatcher centres
• The system must be configurable remotely, using 3G or 4G mobile network
• The system must allow for monitoring of energy consumption and detect faults in energy delivery
• The system must allow for monitoring of power quality indicators as per the Regulatory Agency’s requirements



Solution


The NTLC by Netico is an industrial-grade device capable of delivering all the functionality mentioned above.

Here are some of the device features:

• Provides three phase monitoring,
• Measures variety of energy parameters (voltage, current, power, etc.) and stores these measurements for 5 years internally,
• Provides web access to measured parameters,
• Provides web based system configuration,
• Built in rule engine allows for flexible and easy definition of alarm and event rules,
• Provides comprehensive calendar management functionality for configuration of automated lights management.



Outcome


Netico successfully fulfilled all project demands by installing monitoring and control system based on NTLC in the part of the recently reconstructed Vojvode Stepe boulevard, one of the longest ones in Belgrade. The system is connected to the Netico Hive server installed in the dispatcher centre. In addition to system installation, Netico provided all the training and support needed, so “Javno osvetljenje” can independently run the system as per their operational procedures. The system is periodically analysed both by “Javno osvetljenje” and Netico over the course of two and a half years to verify its reliability, and no issues have been identify till now.