When school high school Minnechaug in Massachusetts chose to install a smart light system a decade ago, their goal being to save money and energy.
But no one could have imagined that one day, 7,000 light bulbs lighting the campus of this large school would operate continuously 24/7 because of a problem, costing this school a lot of money only. to pay the electricity bill.
Local media reported that the lights at the school have been operating continuously, at full brightness, since August 2021. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a way to interrupt the system at this time.
“We know very well that this incident is driving up tax dollars,” said Aaron Osborne, Assistant Director of Education Finance in Hampden-Wilbraham County in Massachusetts. We have been and are still doing everything we can to solve the problem incident.”
But saying “troubleshooting” is much simpler and easier than having to deal with the work in the field.
The company that was hired to install this smart lighting system didn’t think about installing ordinary light switches. Instead, they rely solely on software to control all 7,000 light bulbs.
As a result, when the software crashed in August 2021, leaving all the lights on continuously, no one was able to use the switches or circuit breakers to disconnect the electrical system. The school had to contact the company that installed the software, but they said they couldn’t think of a way to fix the problem either.
5th Light, the company that installed smart lighting, seems to have changed owners quite a few times over the past decade. They are currently owned by another company called Reflex Lighting.
In addition, the company does not have access to the software even though they themselves used it in this scandalous project. So the only way to completely fix the problem is to replace the entire hardware (including the server system and the lighting control panels).
But from here a new problem arose. As the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the supply chain in China, it was difficult to get the parts and components needed to turn off the 7,000 light bulbs at Minnechaug.
Repairs were originally scheduled for early 2022, but were pushed back throughout the year. For now, 5th Light claims that it has received all the necessary replacement parts and that these bulbs will be able to be turned off at last this February.
The school’s leadership told reporters that they hope the issue will be resolved soon. But they are also skeptical about the possibility of success, because so far the lights are still on.
It is known whether the school’s lighting system Minnechaug use all high-efficiency LED or fluorescent bulbs, which is very energy-efficient. But having up to 7,000 lights on continuously throughout the school still consumes a lot of energy.
It is difficult to estimate how much the government and schools have to pay to keep operating glow 7,000 light bulbs, non-stop for 17 months. But surely if added together, that amount will be quite large.
To help improve the situation, teachers have, whenever possible, manually removed light bulbs in their classrooms. School staff turned off the circuit breaker of the lights that were not connected to the smart system. But basically, most of the lights in the system still glow normally.
Paul Mustone, president of Reflex Lighting, told journalists that once the problem is fixed, the company will install a circuit breaker to shut down the entire system remotely. The strange thing is that no one thought of this option when starting to install the lighting system.
(Vietnam+)