IM Properties’ Blythe Valley Park: a smarter, greener and safer business park

Project fiche

Client

IM Properties

Type

Private

Sector

Energy

Geography

Solihull, UK

Description

IM Properties, one of the UK’s largest privately owned property companies, has teamed up with the awardwinning, global tech firm EnzenGroup and its subsidiaries Wellness TechGroup and NNNCo, to create a regional testbed for a new energy-saving streetlight system at Blythe Valley Park (BVP) in Solihull, UK.

The project

CLIENT CHALLENGE

IM Properties owns and manages the Blythe Valley Business Park (BVP), a 1.2 million square feet mixed use business park set amidst 122 acres of parkland, with 25 businesses employing 3500 people and combining commercial, industrial, leisure and residential. IM properties is also responsible for providing a number of shared assets such as streetlights, CCTV cameras around the business park.

There are currently 67 streetlighting assets along the estate roads and a similar number of lighting asset are placed along footpaths and walkways around the park. These streetlights at the BVP are quite old with most of the luminaries being 250W SON E type which are high energy consuming lights.

SOLUTION

Enzen & Wellness TechGroup propose to use the WeLight Smart Lighting System and NNNCo’s Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) driven by LoRa™ to address the smart streetlighting requirements of IM Properties. The WeLight system aims to improve the quality and efficiency of public lighting for enhanced service and a better user experience.

WeLight monitors and controls the public lighting infrastructure, detecting irregularities in consumption or operational malfunctions, as well as compiling consumption and savings reports. It helps managers to prepare inventories and carry out both preventative and corrective maintenance. This solution not only guarantees energy efficiency but is also key for public and traffic safety. WeLight has the potential for integrating devices like artificial vision cameras and influx or noise sensors and, additionally, it can allow for remote management of luminaires with colour variations can be used for adaptive and decorative lighting.

SOLUTION

Despite the supply chain challenges of lockdown, Enzen installed 67 new street luminaires with 138w LED lamps featuring surface mounted diodes. Each luminaire can be automatically switched on, off or dimmed individually or zonally depending on the customer’s needs or according to profiles. This enables the park’s managers to reduce energy waste and light pollution, in contrast to the previous lighting system where everything was under a single control regime.

The solution uses NNNCo’s Low Power Wide Area Network technology to connect smart controllers to each luminaire column via the cloud. The overall system is managed via Wellness’s WeLight Manager, a smart lighting platform designed to improve the effectiveness and reliability of public lighting systems.

RESULTS

  • Potential reduction of 46% in energy use over the course of a year, with further savings to be gained from targeted dimming of each luminaire at appropriate times.
  • Improved the quality and efficiency of the park’s lighting infrastructure.
  • Compliance with park’s sustainability commitment.