Electronics > Power/Renewable Energy/EV's

Energy saving street lamps?

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Belrmar:
https://youtu.be/mi8eE_NEfHM


This video shows some radar mounted street lamps that dimm when no cars are going trough. The idea seems pretty good but are the numbers reliable or is just a gimmic?

SparkyFX:
Interesting of course, it does however contain some conflicting assumptions:
[*]headlights in cars are mandatory
[*]if the road is rarely used (incl. pedestrians), whats the point in having it illuminated at all to then save the cost for lighting, or having it lit for animals crossing the road
[*]can not be retrofitted to discharge type lamps (they need a couple of minutes warm up before full brightness), therefore includes installation cost for new lamp type
[*]radar performance during rain/fog/snow (aka "when you need street lamps") might vary, depending on type
[*]the higher efficiency means less heat to e.g. thaw ice or demist the housing, icicles falling on pedestrians heads might be a bad idea after all
[/list]

glarsson:
Up here in the northern part of Europe we have long periods of darkness during half of the year. We therefore have roads that are heavily used during the afternoon and evening but rarely used during the night. Saving energy on lighting during the night would save energy.

Retrofitting lamps has already started. It all started a couple of years ago due to the ban on mercury-based lamps. We replaced all of our street lamps (mercury based) with LEDs years ago. Why replace with terrible yellow sodium-based lamps or metal halogen lamps. They will probably also be banned due to poor efficiency.

When planning the LED retrofit we discussed lighting with the city light people and they revealed that when the LED retrofit is complete the next phase will be intelligent networked street lights allowing activation of lamps ahead of an approaching vehicle and other smart functions.

Gregg:
I would think passive IR activation added to smart street lamps would be very beneficial.  If the lights could show up animals crossing the road ahead of the nominal headlight beam illumination, it could save a lot of crashes especially on slick roads.  Even hitting a rabbit on an icy road can cause a crash or an even worse crash trying to avoid it at the last minute.

Someone:

--- Quote from: glarsson on December 29, 2017, 05:10:18 pm ---Why replace with terrible yellow sodium-based lamps or metal halogen lamps. They will probably also be banned due to poor efficiency.
--- End quote ---
The current top end LEDs only just surpass sodium or metal halide lamps in efficiency:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy
They're unlikely to be banned for inefficiency when they remain some of the most efficient bright light sources available.

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