(ORDO NEWS) — As of August 2021, Massachusetts (USA) High School authorities have been unable to turn off the building’s smart lighting system. This happened after a software crash.
Ten years ago, Minnehaug Regional High School decided to install a smart lighting system to save money and energy, but no one could have imagined that one day the 7,000 lamps illuminating the vast educational complex would run continuously.
The institution began to receive decent bills for the energy used.
The lights at this school in the Springfield suburb of Wilbraham have been on full blast continuously since mid-2021, but with so many now struggling with their electricity bills, the school’s massive waste of money has been blatant.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an option to turn off the lights at this time…
“We are well aware that this is costing taxpayers a significant amount of money,” Aaron Osborne, assistant superintendent of finance for the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District, told NBC News.
“And we are doing our best to solve this problem.”
Unfortunately, solving the problem turned out to be more difficult than it seemed before.
The smart lighting company didn’t think to turn on physical light switches, instead relying on software to control all 7,000 light bulbs.
When a software glitch occurred in August 2021 that caused all the lights to stay on, the school contacted the company that installed it, only to learn that nothing could be done.
The 5th Light company that installed the system appears to have changed hands several times over the past decade and is now owned by another company called Reflex Lighting.
They also no longer had access to the software they were using on the problematic project. Therefore, the only way to solve the problem was to completely replace the equipment.
Due to supply issues from China caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, obtaining the parts needed to permanently shut down 7,000 lights at Minnehaug Regional High School proved to be an incredibly difficult task.
The refurbishment was due to be carried out in early 2022 but was delayed for another year. Now the lighting company claims to have received all the necessary spare parts and the lights will finally be off next month.
“While we hope this will be done, we are of course skeptical,” the school said in a statement. “So, for now, the lights are on.”
It’s hard to estimate how much money it cost taxpayers to keep it running smoothly for 17 months, but it certainly adds up to a decent amount.
Teachers sometimes manually remove light bulbs from classroom fixtures and school staff flip switches not connected to the main smart system, but most of the lights have been on since August 2021.
—
Online:
Contact us: [email protected]
Our Standards, Terms of Use: Standard Terms And Conditions.