Solar Street Lights vs Traditional Street Lights

Solar Street Lights vs Traditional Street Lights

Solar street light and other solar products have grown in popularity over the years. Unlike traditional sources of light, solar lights don’t harm the environment. This is the reason why a lot of people are switching to this technology for their lighting needs. Moreover, solar lights do not rely on electricity providers; thus, you become spared from hefty electric bills.

    Solar street lights are outdoor light devices that are activated through the photovoltaic or PV panels. They have a rechargeable battery that can be loaded with electrical power when detecting light from a source such as the Sun.

    If you want to know more information about solar varieties, communicate with a China light manufacturer. Now, let’s compare the attributes of solar lighting and traditional lighting.

    Cost-Effectiveness

    It is widely known that for solar products, you will be required a costly initial investment. Hence, traditional street lights are much cheaper. However, in the long run, solar street lights turn out to be a better investment than the traditional ones due to all the expenses you will have to pay for in order to maintain the performance of your lights.

    Installation and maintenance are generally costly, but solar street lights do not require regular maintenance nor a replacement. There is only a need to keep them clean and away from dust.

    As for traditional street lights, they necessitate the setting up of electric poles, which can be very expensive. They need to be maintained regularly too, which will incur further costs.

    Efficiency and Luminance

    In terms of visibility, solar-powered lights closely simulate the sunlight as they have built-in LEDs. These LED lights give you the option to alter the CRI or color rendering index into the color of light that you desire. This improves visibility at night.

    On the other hand, traditional street lights typically possess metal halide lamps within. These high-intensity discharge lamps offer most of their light from the electric arc inside a compact emanation tube. Unfortunately, these cannot beat the visibility that solar-powered lights can provide you with. Solar lamps use LEDs or light-emitting diodes that surpass CFLs or compact fluorescent lamps in harnessing more energy and producing brighter light.

    Lifespan

    Traditional lights last for approximately an average of 5,000 to 8000 hours or less than a year of usage whereas solar LED lights can live for 5 to 7 years. This notion always puts solar-powered lights ahead of the conventional lights.

    Reliability

    Solar street lights depend less on conventional energy and the national grid. For dusk to dawn lighting operations, solar products are totally reliable. Their off-grid nature equates to almost zero maintenance and low operational costs. Through the power cuts and grid disruption, these lights remain illuminated.

    Meanwhile, traditional street lights are always affected by grid failures and power cuts due to their being connected to the energy reserve.

    Good Impact on the Environment

    All in one solar street light poses no threat to the environment and its people. No fire can be ignited due to a lack of electrical wirings. In addition to that, accidents such as strangulation, overheating, and electrocution will never take place as well. They give off a lower quantity of carbon footprint than that of the traditional lights; thereby, making them eco-friendly.

    On the contrary, traditional lights generate illumination merely from electricity which gets disrupted every occurrence of grid failure. The main advantage of solar street lights is it uses renewable energy from the sun, whereas traditional lights rely on electricity generated from nonrenewable fossil fuels and limited by power outages.

    Maintenance

    How do you increase the performance of a modern smart solar street lamp? Manage your lights remotely using a software solution. Observe which hours the pedestrian frequency peaks and drops. Once known, adjust the lighting schedules of solar lights accordingly.

    How do they work day and night? Solar cells in the PV panels of a solar street light convert the heat of the sun (solar energy) to electricity (electrical energy). Afterward, the solar energy is stored in the rechargeable battery. When the dark starts crawling in, solar lights operate using the energy stored in the battery. The few things that make solar in need of maintenance are these: maintenance of the smart battery control systems, minor preventive maintenance, assessment of design, and performance.

    Traditional street lights consume more electricity and require more maintenance and repair from time to time. Operational costs are higher as well.

    Weather-Proof Lights

    Lastly, one of the major concerns in choosing a street light is its durability. How can it stand still amidst the storm? Solar street lamps are weather-proof and water-proof. It’s not a problem if they do not receive sunlight for a few days, they can utilize the rest of the stored solar energy converted into electrical energy.

    Traditional street lights, on the other hand, are not primarily designed to completely stand extreme weather conditions. Although some have a feature that can withstand varying kinds of weather, others are easily damaged by constant typhoons.

    To summarize, solar-powered LED lights are considered one step ahead of the traditional lights. Today, lights with smart technology are in demand. There is no doubt that they can provide more than what is needed by users. Solar street lights also encourage activities such as walking, cycling, going to parks, etc. They increase the productivity of people and visibility at night.

    5 Common Myths about LED Street Lighting

    The potential effects of LED street lighting on health and the environment have been a hot topic of discussion over the last year. As this conversation has evolved, so too have many misperceptions and mischaracterizations of the facts on LEDs. We’ve assembled an array of helpful resources on the topic to help shed some light  and are clarify some of the most common myths on LED streetlights.

    Myth: LED streetlights are more harmful to humans and animals than other kinds of streetlights.

    LED streetlights are no more harmful to humans and animals than other kinds of streetlights. The concern is not the type of light source, but the amount of emitted light that falls in the short-wavelength, often referred to as the “blue” part of the spectrum. And, unlike other types of streetlights, LED streetlights actually offer the potential to control the amount of short-wavelength light that they emit.

    Myth: All short-wavelength light is harmful to humans and animals.

    On the contrary, short-wavelength light is a fundamental component of the natural world. It’s present in sunlight and has been shown to play an important role in a number of physiological processes, such as affecting circadian rhythm (our 24-hour “biological clock” that controls sleep/wake cycles). The concern is that too much nighttime exposure to short-wavelength light may disrupt sleep patterns and have other undesirable effects.

    Myth: LED lighting emits more short-wavelength light than do other lighting technologies.

    It’s true that early LED lighting products tended to have greater levels of short-wavelength content because the technology was still in its initial stages of development. Tremendous advances since then, however, mean that today’s LEDs can be designed to emit as little, or as much, short-wavelength light as desired, without excessive drop-off in efficiency or other aspects of performance. LEDs also offer much greater control over where the light falls. This means they can often meet the same illumination requirements as conventional streetlights while emitting much less light – thus reducing even further any short-wavelength content.

    Myth: Street lighting should never emit any short-wavelength light.

    Most street lighting situations benefit from having at least some amount of short-wavelength content. Short wavelengths are a key component of the visible light spectrum, with benefits ranging from aesthetics to safety. White light sources that contain short wavelengths, for example, can show the colors of objects more naturally, aid in identification of people and objects, improve the contrast between an object and its background, and enhance peripheral vision at the low levels of illuminance that typically characterize street lighting.

    Myth: Communities are better off with conventional street lighting.

    For the last several decades, most street lighting in the United States has used high-pressure sodium (HPS) technology, which emits orange-yellowish light. HPS street lighting is being replaced by street lighting technologies that emit “white” light – primarily LED, due to its higher efficiency and longer life. All white-light technologies – including LED – emit more short-wavelength light than HPS. In addition to lasting longer and being more efficient – which by the way provide substantial energy and cost savings – LED street lighting also offers other potential benefits. For example, unlike other types of street lighting, LED systems can be adjusted to provide only the level of illumination needed at any given time, and can also offer a high degree of control over the direction in which light is emitted. This makes it much easier to reduce glare, light trespass (the spillover of light into areas where it’s not wanted), and uplight (which contributes to the phenomenon of “sky glow” that reduces visibility of stars in the night sky).

    LED street light can play a critical role in avoiding unintended consequences to humans and wildlife – as long as care is taken to make sure the light is directed only where it is needed, with minimal glare, and that it emits a spectrum that supports visibility, safety, and health.

    LED Floodlights: the Advantages

    Floodlighting has become an important part of security for homes and businesses alike. Whether connected to a motion detector or for use to light a garden at night, flood lighting has become an integral part of security in today’s society.

    Homeowners and businesses have enough to deal with in these harsh economic times than needing to worry about changing floodlights. That’s why LED flood light offers the client not only an exceptional dispersion of light but also a bounty of advantages, which are only available when you use LED Floodlights.

    One of the best advantages of using LED Floodlights is the life expectancy; they last for thirty times longer than standard halogen floodlights. This reveals a variety of advantages: you will have more free space as you would not need to stock up on replacement halogen bulbs. Also the main power involved in swapping out defective halogen bulbs can be time consuming and expensive, especially if running a business which requires the use of floodlighting. Thus purchasing LED Floodlights works to be extremely cost effective for the client. LED Floodlights repay your investment with longer life and an exceptional reduction in electricity costs.

    With rising utility prices everyone is looking to save money. Through switching to an LED Floodlights customers will see a fall in their electricity consumption and in turn bills. The LED Floodlight will consume a significantly reduced number of watts compared to a halogen Floodlight, providing the client with an exceptional visual performance as well as low cost electricity bills. LED Floodlights feature economical illumination technology. This technology is also known as Light Emitting Diodes (LED light bulbs); this allows you to have exceptional brightness with a low power consumption.

    LED Floodlights have a higher lumen output than standard Floodlights. One LED Floodlight can have the same effect as two or even three standard Floodlights. This is a staggering statistic and it means that with the longer life expectancy and the exceptional brightness less room would be needed for storing your existing halogen equivalent floodlights. It also now means that security for your home and business is now affordable and is most importantly cost effective.

    It is important to note when looking to install floodlights for outside use that they are IP65 rated. This means that they have been designed and tested to withstand weather conditions and are safe for outside use. This special rating of IP65 is not to be overlooked as it is essential to the performance of the light when used outside.

    Portable floodlights are also available on the market and our ideal for workers at night. By incorporating a battery to floodlights workers can experience high quality LED lighting by only consuming a fraction of the electricity of an ordinary halogen floodlight. This has many advantages such as safety for the workers as a clear bright illumination. Also these would need to be IP65 rated also as even in the most testing weather conditions the clear, crisp light will continue to emit.

    WHAT IS SOLAR POWER?

    Solar energy is the technology used to harness the sun's energy and make it useable. As of 2011, the technology produced less than one tenth of one percent of global energy demand.

    Many are familiar with so-called photovoltaic cells, or solar panel, found on things like spacecraft, rooftops, and handheld calculators. The cells are made of semiconductor materials like those found in computer chips. When sunlight hits the cells, it knocks electrons loose from their atoms. As the electrons flow through the cell, they generate electricity.

    On a much larger scale, solar-thermal power plants employ various techniques to concentrate the sun's energy as a heat source. The heat is then used to boil water to drive a steam turbine that generates electricity in much the same fashion as coal and nuclear power plants, supplying electricity for thousands of people.

    How to Harness Solar Power

    In one technique, long troughs of U-shaped mirrors focus sunlight on a pipe of oil that runs through the middle. The hot oil then boils water for electricity generation. Another technique uses moveable mirrors to focus the sun's rays on a collector tower, where a receiver sits. Molten salt flowing through the receiver is heated to run a generator.

    Other solar technologies are passive. For example, big windows placed on the sunny side of a building allow sunlight to heat-absorbent materials on the floor and walls. These surfaces then release the heat at night to keep the building warm. Similarly, absorbent plates on a roof can heat liquid in tubes that supply a house with hot water.

    Solar energy is lauded as an inexhaustible fuel source that is pollution- and often noise-free. The technology is also versatile. For example, solar cells generate energy for far-out places like satellites in Earth orbit and cabins deep in the Rocky Mountains as easily as they can power downtown buildings and futuristic cars.