Author Topic: Energy saving street lamps?  (Read 16024 times)

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Offline james_s

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #25 on: January 04, 2018, 12:09:01 am »
LED efficiency was not impressive at all when streetlights first started using them but it has improved quite a lot and continues to improve. While being a lighting guy I hate to see the demise of discharge lighting and a great many unique light sources that have been developed over the years but whatever my opinions, LED is the future of lighting. At a lighting industry trade show last year literally *everything* being shown was LED. Other sources that had been popular, HID, fluorescent, induction, it was like they didn't exist at all. Low pressure sodium lamps are in the process of being phased out, I believe only one company still manufactures the lamps and production is likely to stop within a decade. Metal halide was promising, particularly the high color rendering ceramic types but development has pinnacled and essentially frozen as LED has surpassed the efficiency, lifespan and color quality. MH and HPS(SON) lamps are still made in large numbers as replacement lamps in existing luminaires but that will rapidly decrease. All new street lights that have been installed in my area within the last 5 years or so have been 100% LED, and very soon that is going to be all the major manufactures offer.

With LEDs being capable of instant-on, dimming, long life sealed luminaires that don't need relamping it's easy to see why they are taking over for roadway lighting. I think the sensor activated streetlights have merit if done properly, they could easily dim to say 10% power until movement is detected nearby. At 10% power a light will still appear much more than 10% of full brightness.

It's entirely possible to make LEDs that emit a nearly monochromatic yellow that mimics the color of low pressure sodium if the market desires. I've always thought LPS lamps looked cool but they never caught on in the US, I've only ever seen a very small handful of them in the wild.
« Last Edit: January 04, 2018, 12:10:46 am by james_s »
 

Offline SparkyFX

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #26 on: January 04, 2018, 01:57:04 am »
With dark car colours, including black, being currently the most popular on British roads, half the cars look black under white street lights.
Which means you can not correctly identify the colour of the vehicle that mowed you down while doing so (maybe because the driver didn´t see you?!). Well, if vehicles run over pedestrians at night because they can´t see them, i consider that a possible street lamp fail. :-)

Modern headlights are quite good anyway, the street lamps still serve the purpose of seeing pedestrians crossing a bit earlier and lighting places. No idea if making them intelligent is really necessary. If you want some place to be lighted at night for looking like a less scary place, then it needs to be lit in all areas, not switched off or only lit where there is movement. I guess that would be rather a psychological effect and i don´t see which niche this should fill. There needs to be some problem solved without creating too many new at the same time after all.

E.g. more parts usually scale to more causes of failure. If road maintenance needs to service this style of lamp more often for defects or false reports of being broken it might generate a loss over conventional lamps.
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Offline james_s

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #27 on: January 04, 2018, 06:29:29 am »
With LED you don't have to turn the lights completely off, you can dim them down to use considerably less power while still having enough light that the area doesn't look dark and scary. Generally I find that streetlights are much brighter than necessary, and ironically the dark sky regulations requiring full cutoff luminaires results in still higher light levels being needed along with more lamps placed closer together. Otherwise you end up with small pools of light spaced out along a dark road. IMO even light is far more useful than bright light. You don't need a lot of it, you just need the light spread out so it illuminates the shadows.
 

Offline stj

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #28 on: January 04, 2018, 02:09:06 pm »
maybe a radical re-think is needed.

how about ditching the streetlamps and using illuminated bollards along the edge of the road at shorter intervals?
that would light the pavement and buildings, making people visible and able to get about.
but it would reduce power use and equipment costs - maintenance wouldnt require a lift either.

i know the bollard lights work well, because i'v seen it used at a couple of buildings with large outdoor area's.
 

Offline SparkyFX

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #29 on: January 04, 2018, 02:14:31 pm »
Thats right, just tried to point out that not all problems can be solved by technology or would be contradicted by applying too much.
E.g. motorists usually try to get the whole road lighted up to see as much as possible and as much as is allowable (or even ignore that part) and then complain about all the bedazzlement by everyone else.

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Online coppice

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #30 on: January 04, 2018, 04:50:48 pm »
maybe a radical re-think is needed.

how about ditching the streetlamps and using illuminated bollards along the edge of the road at shorter intervals?
that would light the pavement and buildings, making people visible and able to get about.
but it would reduce power use and equipment costs - maintenance wouldnt require a lift either.

i know the bollard lights work well, because i'v seen it used at a couple of buildings with large outdoor area's.
There are streets in the heart of HK which have no street lights, and you hardly ever notice. There is so much light from the advertising that you just don't need street lights.
 

Offline schmitt trigger

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #31 on: January 05, 2018, 09:44:09 pm »
Otherwise you end up with small pools of light spaced out along a dark road. ...

Exactly!

That is what happens when existing light poles designed for HID lamps are retrofitted with LEDs
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #32 on: January 05, 2018, 09:55:54 pm »
Otherwise you end up with small pools of light spaced out along a dark road. ...

Exactly!

That is what happens when existing light poles designed for HID lamps are retrofitted with LEDs

That's not the fault of LEDs as a technology though, it's a fault of requirements in many areas for luminaires to be FCO, ie no light emitted above 90 degrees. It's perfectly possible to make LED sources with the same optical characteristics as the HID lamps they replace. We had the same problem here with HID lamps, older semi-cutoff luminaires replaced with full-cutoff types resulting in uneven lighting. To get the light even you need a lot more sources so it does little to combat the problem of light pollution. A better approach would be to use *less* light overall, and focus on even illumination. You don't need roadways lit brightly enough to comfortably read a book. Unfortunately in the real world you end up with legal guidelines that dictate the light levels required in various situations.
 

Offline grumpydoc

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #33 on: January 05, 2018, 10:07:05 pm »
For a similar reason the head light at cars in France have a yellow tint, reducing the blue and thus scattering in fog an with scratches on the windshield.
Not since the early 1990's
 

Offline stj

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #34 on: January 06, 2018, 12:17:53 am »
Is street lighting THAT important? I mean, I've driven on a lot of highways without street lights, and people drive at 80mph+ with no other sources of light besides headlight, and I don't see a big problem here.

I feel much relaxed and comfortable driving in the dark where all I can see is the road in front of me. Driving in the day or under a well lit road distracts me and makes me tired.

get out and walk a few miles.
then come back and edit your post.

i'v been on country roads at night and you cant see *anything* without a full moon or a flashlight in your hand!
 

Offline stj

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #35 on: January 06, 2018, 04:19:58 am »
no, you implied that street lighting is not required because you have headlights on your car.

street lighting is not there for you, it's there for people who dont have lights.
walkers, cyclists etc.
 

Online coppice

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #36 on: January 06, 2018, 04:24:26 am »
no, you implied that street lighting is not required because you have headlights on your car.

street lighting is not there for you, it's there for people who dont have lights.
walkers, cyclists etc.
Street lights are there for the drivers too. The accident rate on unlit roads, especially motorways, is far higher than lit ones.
 

Offline soubitos

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #37 on: January 06, 2018, 07:47:23 am »
Saving energy is never a bad idea... or is it?
Electrical power is produced 24/7/365 and the bulk comes from coal/nuclear/gas/hydro.
During the night, there is no peak demand but power is still being produced, simply because it cannot be otherwise.
So, the street lights are not causing any problem to the grid, they are scheduled loads during off-peak hours and they even help stabilize the grid.
The only use for tampering with the way street lights work until today could be to replace them all with LED lights, power them with PV WITH storage batteries so then yes, it is obvious conserving stored energy is useful... since there is no replacement for "basis" power plants though, i dont see why one should invest so much in conserving energy that would almost 100% be produced and go to waste anyway!

 

Offline glarsson

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #38 on: January 06, 2018, 08:25:14 am »
During the night, there is no peak demand but power is still being produced, simply because it cannot be otherwise.
So, the street lights are not causing any problem to the grid, they are scheduled loads during off-peak hours and they even help stabilize the grid.
The only use for tampering with the way street lights work until today could be to replace them all with LED lights, power them with PV WITH storage batteries so then yes, it is obvious conserving stored energy is useful... since there is no replacement for "basis" power plants though, i dont see why one should invest so much in conserving energy that would almost 100% be produced and go to waste anyway!
In places further away from the equator than Greece the dark part of the day definitely overlays the peak hours. Northern Sweden, as an example, has 24 hours of no sun at all during mid-winter but the need for street lights varies over those 24 hours.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #39 on: January 06, 2018, 06:35:48 pm »
Saving energy is never a bad idea... or is it?
Electrical power is produced 24/7/365 and the bulk comes from coal/nuclear/gas/hydro.
During the night, there is no peak demand but power is still being produced, simply because it cannot be otherwise.
So, the street lights are not causing any problem to the grid, they are scheduled loads during off-peak hours and they even help stabilize the grid.
The only use for tampering with the way street lights work until today could be to replace them all with LED lights, power them with PV WITH storage batteries so then yes, it is obvious conserving stored energy is useful... since there is no replacement for "basis" power plants though, i dont see why one should invest so much in conserving energy that would almost 100% be produced and go to waste anyway!


This is a great argument toward adding more electric vehicles to the system to augment traditional fuel powered vehicles. These cars can be charged at night when overall demand is lower and that helps to mitigate one of the primary arguments from naysayers which is that grid capacity is insufficient to account for them.
 

Offline soubitos

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #40 on: January 06, 2018, 07:04:39 pm »
So.. i use my electric car at day... and charge at night... what if i run out of juice say at 13:00? I wait? I pull the portable PV from the back and wait more? I go to the nearest "power" station and hook to the grid? I start the gas power generator i keep in the back? LOL..... I am not a naysayer but.... its one think to WISH something works and a totally different to actually work.... learned that the hard way
 

Offline glarsson

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #41 on: January 06, 2018, 07:48:49 pm »
So.. i use my electric car at day... and charge at night... what if i run out of juice say at 13:00? I wait? I pull the portable PV from the back and wait more? I go to the nearest "power" station and hook to the grid? I start the gas power generator i keep in the back? LOL..... I am not a naysayer but.... its one think to WISH something works and a totally different to actually work.... learned that the hard way
What if you run out of petrol or (even worse) diseasel at 13:00? That is a failure in you, not in the "fuel".
 

Offline soubitos

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #42 on: January 06, 2018, 08:23:13 pm »


Quote from: glarsson on Today at 09:48:49 PM


>Quote from: soubitos on Today at 09:04:39 PM
So.. i use my electric car at day... and charge at night... what if i run out of juice say at 13:00? I wait? I pull the portable PV from the back and wait more? I go to the nearest "power" station and hook to the grid? I start the gas power generator i keep in the back? LOL..... I am not a naysayer but.... its one think to WISH something works and a totally different to actually work.... learned that the hard way


What if you run out of petrol or (even worse) diseasel at 13:00? That is a failure in you, not in the "fuel".
If i run out of gas ANY time of the day, i most likely am 5 min away from the nearest gas station!!!
If i am supposed to only charge at night so as not to overload the grid and to help balance the night shift, then any time of the day i run out of juice, thats that.....


 

Offline floobydust

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #43 on: January 06, 2018, 08:45:18 pm »
You can augment LED street lights with solar or wind gen, and batteries.
It's just a matter of pounding through the numbers to see if it's worth it, or if just a SJW fantasy that it's green and surely better for the world.

I don't think Panasonic's LED streetlight “Kaze-Kamome” (Wind Seagull) did really well, with it's Savonius rotor wind generator. Looked neat though.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #44 on: January 07, 2018, 09:44:50 am »
So.. i use my electric car at day... and charge at night... what if i run out of juice say at 13:00? I wait? I pull the portable PV from the back and wait more? I go to the nearest "power" station and hook to the grid? I start the gas power generator i keep in the back? LOL..... I am not a naysayer but.... its one think to WISH something works and a totally different to actually work.... learned that the hard way


Well, the 5 friends and family members I personally know who have electric cars have never had that problem. If they did I guess they would do the same thing most people would do if they broke down and call for a tow? Like millions of others who live in the suburbs they drive only 15-30 miles a day commuting to work and running errands so with a 50-80 mile range they get out of the car, running out of juice is not something that has ever happened.

I don't have to wish for it to work, I can see it work any time I want, I can call up one of these people and ask for a ride, I've driven several of the cars myself out of curiosity. But what about longer trips you'll ask? Well all the EV owners I know live in multi-car households so they have another vehicle should that be necessary. Will this work for everyone? No, but it doesn't have to either, hence my comment that EVs can augment traditional fuel powered cars. We don't need or even want everyone to have them because that probably would drive up the cost of electricity and then the powers that be would find a way to make up for the massive gas tax revenue no longer coming in, but we could certainly have more than we do now. If I didn't love my particular car so much I'd be tempted to get an EV. At least 95% of my driving is the 16 mile round trip to and from the office, I could do 95% of my driving in a car that had a paltry 20 mile range if I could plug it in to charge at night. Not saying I'd be comfortable cutting it that close but certainly the ~60 mile range of my friend's Leaf would be more than adequate. For those 5% of trips that need more range I could borrow my partner's gas powered car.

I've never been able to figure out why some people get so hung up on the "but what if someone needs x, y or z? Then what??!?" Well, then an EV may not be the right choice for them, but that doesn't mean there aren't many millions of people that it will work for. Heck it's getting more and more common for city dwellers to not own any car at all, they use mass transit and various taxi services. The data is readily available though clearly showing that vast numbers of people drive well under 50 miles a day and/or live in multiple car households and/or have access to other forms of transportation. Oh and just because you ideally should charge at night when demand is lowest (and rates can be lower to encourage this) doesn't mean you can't charge at any other time should it become necessary. Maybe you pay a bit more so you generally try to avoid it, but that doesn't mean it's not an option.
« Last Edit: January 07, 2018, 09:49:10 am by james_s »
 
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Offline IanMacdonald

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #45 on: July 29, 2018, 08:16:50 am »
I can see this being a big problem for residents, with lights flashing all the time.

Besides, you will probably find that the costs far outweigh any energy savings.  As for banning mercury lights, that is crazy. The mercury poses no environmental threat unless it is disposed of carelessly. Maybe they should ban wind turbines in that case, after all they too contain substances which would be toxic if spilled.

https://enkonn-solar.com/ -I find hard to believe would work satisfactorily. Do the math on energy in, energy out before you believe ads like this.
« Last Edit: July 29, 2018, 08:19:48 am by IanMacdonald »
 

Offline cdev

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #46 on: August 13, 2018, 10:56:36 pm »
In rural areas and between towns, one could argue for motion-sensing on LED highway lighting at night. That it doesn't make sense to have lights on when there is no traffic on the highway. The lights can switch off when there has not been any traffic in a while and switch back on when a car is approaching.
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Offline f4eru

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #47 on: August 14, 2018, 07:28:05 pm »
Blinkenlights are probably much more disturbing for animals, humans included, than a constant light source in the dark.

Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #48 on: August 14, 2018, 07:56:49 pm »
What about fade the lights over a period of several seconds when brightening and a minute or two when dimming?
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Offline jmelson

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Re: Energy saving street lamps?
« Reply #49 on: August 15, 2018, 07:14:35 pm »
I can see this being a big problem for residents, with lights flashing all the time.
They could make this less objectionable by having the lamps ramp up and down instead of just going from full off to full on and vice-versa.  Of course, when turning on, they need to come up fairly fast as traffic approaches.  If you wanted to get real fancy, you could interconnect the lamps with some mid-range RF network, so lamps 1/4 mile away could get advance notice of approaching traffic.

Jon
 


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