Outdoor lighting is important for a number of reasons. For one, it enhances security by illuminating the outdoors, thereby keeping muggers away. Secondly, they enhance road safety as roads, sidewalks and embankments can easily be seen by motorists and pedestrians. Street lighting also increases work hours as it makes it possible for businesses to keep their doors open late into the night as shoppers are normally comfortable when doing their shopping in well-lit areas. However, these benefits come at a cost. For one, the monthly electricity bills incurred by local authorities are usually quite considerable, which is an impediment to the expansion of street-lighting programmes. The good news is that there is a solution. That is to use solar street lights.
How Solar-Powered Lights Work
These are outdoor lighting fixtures consisting of a pole with a solar panel mounted on top as well as an LED lighting fixture next to it. The system also has a battery pack, which stores energy produced during the day. When night falls, the charging sequence stops and discharging of the battery starts as the LED lights start drawing power from the battery. The lights usually remain on until sunrise. The switching of these lights, on and off, is usually done automatically by light activated switches.
Types of Configurations
There are three types of solar street lights. The first is the design described above. The second consists of the same components, but the battery pack and charge controller are mounted on the ground. This means that only the lighting fixture and solar panel are found on the pole. The final design has the solar panels and battery pack for an entire street or neighborhood located in the same place. The panels produce electrical energy, which is stored in a central power bank. The power is then distributed to street-lighting poles located throughout the neighborhood or street. Whatever the case, solar-powered lighting systems have numerous benefits including:
i) Reduced Energy Bills
These systems rely on sunlight to work, so they do not come with any monthly energy bills. This means that the city can save a considerable amount of money in the long term by installing these systems.
ii) Power Redundancy
While power outages can make a city dark, solar-powered lights are never affected by power outages because they have their own power source. This means that they can continue to power the outdoors at night when there is a power outage.
iii) Easy Installation
These systems do not need to be connected to the grid, which makes them easy to install. All that is needed is mounting of the pole with all its components.
