South Australia Water has chosen Raytec Infra-Red illuminators in a state-of-the-art perimeter security upgrade of their water treatment plant in Adelaide, South Australia.
South Australia Water has chosen Raytec Infra-Red illuminators in a state-of-the-art perimeter security upgrade of their water treatment plant in Adelaide, South Australia.
Initially, the tender called for visible lighting to provide a specified 3 lux for the cameras around the fence line. However specialist security designers and integrators AG Security Group proposed an entirely different solution that was successful in winning the tender; putting forward Raytec Infra-Red CCTV lighting.
“We had previously deployed Raytec lighting on similar projects” comments Wayne McKenny, Project Manager of AG Security Group, “and the products were reliable with a competitive price point and comfortably covered the range we needed with excellent night-time images”.
Crucially the Infra-Red lighting delivers zero light pollution. AG Security highlighted that some residents may have had an issue with light pollution from a traditional visible lighting solution. There were also huge installation cost savings due to the fact that the Raytec IR could be installed onto the PTZ camera poles and achieve full coverage around the perimeter from the minimum number of locations. A visible lighting solution would have required more lighting units to achieve the same coverage resulting in additional lighting columns and power reticulation costs (cabling, trenching, circuits, etc). The Raytec IR could also be triggered on alarm to provide lighting only when needed, resulting in further running cost savings.
“The innovative Infra-Red solution and associated cost savings went a long way towards a successful tender bid”, further comments Wayne McKenny.
Furthermore, the Raytec stand-alone CCTV lighting proved a perfect solution for the remotely monitored nature of the site. As a stand-alone unit separate from the camera, there is a reduced risk of spiders, which are attracted to IR, creating webs right in front of the camera and causing false alarms. This is often the case with cameras with integrated LED lighting. For this reason, the latest British Standards for remotely monitored CCTV sites (BS8418) states that ‘IR illumination should not surround the camera lens on external cameras'.
“South Australia Water were extremely pleased with the outcome of the installation” comments Wayne McKenny, “and the high quality of night vision and huge cost savings due to the innovate solution provided by the Raytec Infra-Red lighting”.