Haven Kakumäe, a yacht harbour located in the Western coast of Kopli Gulf in the Baltic Sea region, has used smart lighting through a LoRaWAN network in a bid to gain better control around energy usage and cost efficiency.
The project management team behind the Haven Kakumäe marina in the Estonian capital of Tallinn has been keen to use new technologies and to ensure the sustainable use of resources.
Their use of LoRa technology began in March 2017, and today, all of the port’s luminaires and over 500 metres of the harbour’s breakwater lighting can be controlled remotely through a LoRaWAN network. This uses Luminaire controllers manufactured by industrial automation development company Nordic Automation Systems (NAS), installed on 45 outdoor lamps.
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Reducing energy consumption
By using these controllers, NAS executives claim, the company can reduce energy consumption by turning the lights on and off at optimal times. The street lights can be set to go on at specific dates and times, for example, and the technology can monitor light intensity, so that unnecessary lighting is avoided and that lights can be dimmed where appropriate.
The controllers are connected to the LoRaWAN Gateway via radio frequency, and the network server transfers data to the gateway through ethernet, 3G or 4G. The IoT hub platform interprets encrypted data from the end nodes of the LoRAWAN back end. Haven Kakumäe then has the option to connect with external applications via APIs to use the data in third-party systems.
Haven Kakumäe has also installed more than 100 dock electrical and water distribution pedals, which are equipped with the NAS-developed LoRAWAN electricity meter which provides 24-hour access to electricity usage. The marina’s access control systems will also be controlled through the LoRAWAN network so that it can alert management of any possible unauthorized activity.
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Illuminating uses of connected tech
Smart lighting has been a huge growth area, but it has mainly been used in cities. Last year, Cardiff Council said it was nearing completion of its deployment of a connected lighting system using LED streetlights technology from Philips Lighting. The council claimed that the lighting system will save it over £750,000 a year and reduce energy use for public lighting by 60 percent.
The concept isn’t new; back in 2015, the UK county of Gloucestershire said it would deploy 55,000 LED streetlights to cover 1,000 square miles of the area. They would be wirelessly connected and managed via Telensa’s PLANet Central Management System.
According to Harshvardhan Chitale, vice chairman and managing director of Philips Lighting India, a division of Dutch consumer electronics company Philips, IoT-driven smart lights will “be the default” in the next five to 10 years.
“Today, when we think of buying a phone, we don’t think of a landline phone. By default, we think of a mobile or a smartphone. We anticipate that over the next five to 10 years – closer to five years – potentially, when people think of upgrading their existing lights or installing new ones, they would install lights or lighting systems which are smart,” Chitale recently told India’s largest independent news service IANS.
NAS claims that Haven Kakumäe’s use of street lights is the first for a marina in Northern Europe.
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