Data Management

• Tool: Public Lighting Calculator
• Tool: How To Audit Existing Lights
• Case studies: Regional asset audits
• Case Study: Street Lighting Audit, City of Marion, SA
• Tool: Utility Tracker
• Tool: CCP Greenhouse Gas Application
• Tool: CCP Quantification Toolkit
• Case Study: Scalable Network For Lighting Monitoring, Italy
• Case Study: Installing Electric Meters to Capture the Energy Cost Savings of LEDs, Onondaga County Department of Transportation (ODOT), United States
• Action checklist

To take action on sustainable public lighting, councils must be able to access public lighting data, analyse and use that data, and access public lighting experts.

Data plays a particularly important role during benchmarking, when councils gather and analyse data on council's public lighting stock, its energy use and greenhouse production, and technological options. This data can then be used to develop a strong business case for new lighting types and to ensure that subsequent decision-making is adequately informed. It also plays a key role during monitoring and evaluation, when councils gather and analyse data to establish what progress has been made.

There are a number of tools available below to help councils manage data effectively. Councils may also wish to check their data management practices against those suggested in the Actions Checklists.

The Public Lighting Calculator is designed to assist council officers and energy managers to compare existing lighting against upgrade scenarios.

For Category P (minor road and pedestrian area) lighting, the user has the option of modelling population upgrades to Greenstreet T5 Fluorescent lights, or high pressure sodium lights, metal halide, or compact fluorescent lights. For Category V (major road) lighting, the user has the option of modelling population upgrades to high pressure sodium lamps only.

Users may enter their existing lighting population data for a locality, and assess lighting upgrade choices in terms of lighting levels, energy use, energy costs, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Technical data is provided on lighting performance for upgrade scenarios, together with information on the impact of pole heights on ongoing maintenance costs, and there are hyperlinks to external information sources. The calculator works best when downloaded to your computer.

The calculator does not take into account more complex and state/distributor specific variables such as bulk maintenance schedules, operation and maintenance costs, capital costs for replacement lighting and residual capital values of existing street lighting assets. Expert advice and financial modeling should be used in this regard.

The calculator was developed in collaboration with the Northern Alliance for Greenhouse Action (Victoria) and Sustainability Victoria, with the support of the Australian Greenhouse Office (AGO), in the Department of the Environment and Water Resources in the former government. Please pass on any feedback about how to improve the tool to the current department, DEWHA.

Accurate information about public lighting infrastructure is essential for identifying potential improvements, reducing council budgets, and clarifying asset ownership and responsibilities between councils, distribution businesses and transport authorities.

Before committing to an audit, council should make sure that it is really needed. This is because audits can be expensive, time consuming and delay other actions. Things to consider include:

• Has another council in the same distributor area completed an audit? If so, was it useful? Did the audit data differ significantly from the distributor's data?
• Would it be better to undertake a partial audit first to determine whether audit data is likely to differ significantly from distributor data?
• What sorts of lights will be audited? Different lights can be audited in different ways, e.g:
  
  • For distributor-maintained standard lights (generally the majority of lights), a partial audit can be completed to determine whether a full audit is required.
  • For distributor-maintained non-standard or decorative lights (often part of council's asset base), a comprehensive audit for condition and energy saving opportunity should be completed.
  • For council-owned metered lighting, a comprehensive audit should be completed (as above) and the lights added to council asset management systems. 

The tool, How To Audit Existing Lights, enables councils to conduct an audit of the number, type, location and condition of public lighting in a municipality, which provides a good starting point for these actions, and encourages effective data management.

Councils should also consider carrying out asset audits on a regional basis to:

• Quantify council’s asset base and future liability.
• Improve maintenance practices and customer service response, for example, by using GIS systems to enable customer service representatives to access light information whilst talking to residents who lodge faults.
• Identify energy efficiency opportunities on a continuous improvement basis.
• Achieve economies of scale in engaging consultants.
• Streamline communications and requests involving distribution businesses.
• Access funding opportunities.
• Develop a central resource of information.
• Share advice and experiences.

A region of councils in South Australia are conducting a regional audit of their streetlighting assets, with results due May 2008.

In addition, a region of councils in Victoria are conducting targetted audits of their metered non-streetlighting assets (e.g. car park lighting). The project, entitled Walk the Talk, will use the audit information to guide the selection of suitable replacements, and the information will be written up as a guide, available May 2008.

The City of Marion is currently undertaking a street lighting audit to provide information on the number, type, location and condition of street and public lighting in Marion, in order to create a more accurate database and allow for comparison with ETSA Utilities accounts. Once a clearer understanding of the composition of Council’s street and public lighting assets is obtained, a policy direction can be developed to guide the management of these assets with the view to improved performance and service delivery.

For more information contact Ann Gibbons, Environmental Planner, Ph: +61 (0)8 8375 6857, or Kimberly Awalt, Unit Manager Technical Services, Ph: (0)8 8375 6847.

Other councils who have undertaken or are in the process of undertaking street lighting audits include Coffs Harbour City Council in NSW and the cities of Adelaide, Salisbury, and Unley in South Australia.

Utility Tracker, available from Sustainability Victoria, enables councils to log and analyse their data on energy consumption. It also allows councils to analyse results against a benchmark. The tool is aimed at the entire energy portfolio of councils, and public lighting is one of the entries.

The CCP Greenhouse Gas Application is designed to help with benchmarking. Use it to complete an inventory of council’s corporate greenhouse emissions, including energy use, financial spend and greenhouse emissions from public lighting. Note: this tool is only available to CCP councils. Login is required.

The CCP Quantification Toolkit is designed to help with reporting on sustainable public lighting initiatives. Use it to quantify the greenhouse and financial savings of your initiatives, and report this as part of the annual CCP measures reporting process. Note: this tool is only available to CCP councils. Login is required.

SCANLEM is a cost-effective wide area embedded network, enabling collection and transmission of data using public-lamp “embedded” local nodes in a metropolitan area. Data collected at the public-lamp nodes can be deployed not only for monitoring of lighting in metropolitan areas, but also for pollution and circulation remote monitoring and direct control. For more information, visit the JENET website.

As of December 2001, ODOT retrofitted 20 intersections with red LED signals, including 19 intersections with three-color signals and one with red flashers. All of the intersections with LED signals were equipped with electric meters. ODOT calculates that the installed LED signals have cut the department’s electricity consumption by approximately 72,750 kWh per year. At an average electricity cost of $0.066 per kWh, annual energy cost savings have totalled more than $4,800 for red signals alone. Reference

1. Monitor, record and interpret data on public lighting stock on an ongoing basis (or negotiate for someone within the distribution business to do this). Include asset age, light type, energy use and greenhouse emissions.
2. Improve data management systems - integrate financial, energy, greenhouse and utility tracking systems and improve the way billing data is supplied to enable more efficient processing and analysis
3. Consider an asset audit or statistical sample to determine data discrepancies, appropriate lighting levels/categories, and whether any areas are over lit.

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