Think of all the street lighting around your own town or suburb and then multiply that by millions. It’s hard to imagine the number of street lights in the world, but it certainly adds up to a lot of electricity consumed. It also means a massive amount of greenhouse gases created in the supply of that power; not to mention the cost which is passed down to rate and tax payers.
Solar powered street lights are nothing new, but they have had their challenges. However, rapidly evolving technology along with LED lighting coming of age is now providing some real solutions for earth and energy friendly lighting applications.
USA company Visible Light Solar Technologies has unveiled what it says is the industry’s first intelligent solar/LED technology solution. The company’s solar/LED lighting applications operate up to 85% more efficiently than their HID counterparts and offer a return on investment of between 2 – 5 years.
Visible Light Solar Technologies says that if rolled out across the USA, their solution could save up to 189 terawatt hours of electricity, the equivalent of taking 16 million households off of the grid and representing USD $20 billion in electricity savings.
LED’s also require far fewer changes than HID bulbs because they can last up to 100,000 hours and are resistant to thermal and vibrational shocks. LED lighting also avoids mercury hazards that are present in many traditional street lighting fixtures.
In a test installation at a school, wattage consumption was reduced from from 25,000 kilowatts per year to 920, with projected annual savings of USD $11,000.
While the lights have solar panels and a deep cycle battery for energy storage, they are also grid-connected. In the event of adverse weather conditions not allowing for sufficient charge, the lights will use mains grid power automatically.
Additionally, Visible Light Solar’s SPDI infrastructure allows voltage balancing and fixture-by-fixture programmability, so managers can program illumination levels for each fixture based on clock time, motion detection, ambient light levels, temperature and solar storage availability.
