Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead

As part of its ‘spend to save initiative’ RBWM was looking to replace all of its existing street lighting estate with energy-efficient LED luminaires, with an overriding objective to reduce both its carbon footprint and annual street lighting budget, by saving on maintenance costs and energy bills.

The tender specified a requirement to meet precise design criteria and supply in excess of 16,000 LED luminaires that would deliver significant savings in energy consumption as well as have a guaranteed design life of one hundred thousand hours. Furthermore, all products were to be supplied and installed within a maximum period of 18 months.

Zeta’s SmartScape range of street and area lighting solutions which are manufactured at the firm’s UK-based production facility, were deemed to offer the most competitive and efficient solution.

The contract win included approximately 14,000 SmartScape Nano and Macro LED street lights which were installed in residential areas and traffic routes across the Borough. Zeta also provided over 1,000 SmartScape Heritage LED conversion kits which met RBWM’s objective to retain rather than replace heritage-style lanterns in historic positions, including in the centre of Windsor and in some local parish areas.

The legacy lighting on major roads into cities including Windsor and Ascot were upgraded with Zeta’s SmartScape Macro which consumes in excess of 70 per cent less energy compared with conventional SOX, SON and CFL luminaires and meets street lighting classes up to M3. Zeta supplied 2,500 of this versatile LED street light which is designed specifically for distributor and traffic routes within both urban and rural areas.

All lights were fitted with the Telensa control system which provides real-time reporting of the lights’ functionality as well as the ability to dim or increase the lighting output if required.

In addition, Zeta provided a number of other LED products including the Zeta Bespoke Retrofit Subway Kits and Zeta SignLite retrofit kits. Some 200 subway lights were converted to LED across the Borough and Zeta’s SignLite retrofit kits replaced the legacy lighting on over 1,000 illuminated road signs.

As well as manufacturing and supplying the luminaires, Zeta worked closely with all other parties involved (including CMS provider Telensa and contractor AA Lighting Ltd), to project manage and co-ordinate the rollout to ensure it ran smoothly.

Overall, Zeta’s low-energy solution will deliver in excess of a 60 per cent reduction in energy consumption and associated costs.

The SmartScape Macro lights are set to run at 50W to 100W compared with the legacy units which ranged from 100W to 250W, whilst the SmartScape Nano, running at 8W to 18W replaced the old SOX and SON street lights that ranged between 35W-100W.

These energy-efficient solutions feature intelligent cooling technology that ensures optimum heat dissipation, allowing the possibility to increase the wattage (remotely via CMS) if ever required, without having to change the luminaires.

There were multiple variants of heritage-style lanterns across the Borough, ranging from square and round post top to unique teardrop units in various sizes. The SmartScape Heritage, with its intelligent design, means that the LED gear trays can be engineered to fit any shape or size lantern, accommodating RBWM’s desire to retain the existing Heritage-style lanterns in key areas whilst achieving significant energy, cost and maintenance savings.

Subway lights across the Borough were re-glazed, upgraded and retrofitted with 18W and 36W variants of Zeta Bespoke Retrofit Subway Kits, replacing energy-hungry lighting which ranged from 24W to 65W. And SignLite retrofit kits featuring low-energy 6W LEDs, are providing long-lasting illumination for roads signs in cities including Ascot, Windsor and Maidenhead.

Furthermore with a typical lifetime of >100,000 hours for the Bespoke Retrofit Subway Kits, SignLite retrofit kits and SmartScape LED street lights, Zeta’s solutions require significantly less maintenance, which lowers the cost and time requirement for RBWM to manage and maintain the lighting.

The roll-out was completed on schedule and feedback from residents has been positive. LEDs provide superior illumination and improved colour rendering than traditional street lighting technologies. With CMS systems integrated within each street luminaire, light levels can now be controlled centrally; improving estate management and maintenance. Where required, additional lighting control in the form of shields were also incorporated for more sensitive areas such as residential roads.

This was a major project and Zeta successfully rolled it out in the short timescale of 12 months. We made the decision to undertake this project to provide our residents with better value for money street lighting and to reduce energy usage for the benefit of the environment.
Cllr Phill Bicknell, Cabinet Member for highways, transport and Windsor and Deputy Leader of the council, Royal Borough Windsor and Maidenhead