Solar powered street lights meet the requirements of street lighting standards while avoiding expensive installation costs associated with traditional grid powered lights. Solar lighting also delivers the energy savings and reduced carbon footprints that communities and utilities seek. Roadways where electrical grid power is unavailable, unreliable or costly to access, makes a solar powered street lighting system the ideal solution: installing easily, requiring minimal maintenance, and having zero dependence on the electrical grid.
Sometimes unique requirements illustrate different benefits that can be achieved with solar powered street lights as is shown in the following application.
A large California energy facility that is situated next to 3,000 acres of rare state park housing threatened and endangered species. This facility engages in a rigorous environmental screening process for all projects that have the potential to disturb the native environment. When the facility noticed that some of its parking lots were suffering from less than adequate lighting due to old cables and long electrical lines, it knew it would be faced with a unique challenge. Not only was the facility up against stringent environmental protection mandates, it was also situated near federal government property, which meant that permits to trench the area would involve a lengthy approvals process. Factor into the equation limited on-site resources for the maintenance of lighting infrastructure and the challenge began to look a little daunting.
The facility needed a unique solution: one that would allow it to install lighting bright enough to meet the requirements for parking lot lighting, but that would allow it to avoid the cost and disruption of trenching and the logistics of continued maintenance. The team assigned to the project began to examine the possibilities and weigh out the pros and cons of each solution they encountered. After the research and examination was done, the decision to purchase solar powered street lights was made.
With no need to trench, the solar powered street lights allowed the facility to avoid time-consuming and costly permit procedures and saved the facility nearly $1.5 million in trenching and cabling costs alone.
In addition to significant cost benefits, the facility's environmental concerns were also addressed with the implementation of the solar powered solution. By minimizing the digging required for installation, the solar LED lights allowed delicate park lands to remain undisturbed. Because solar powered street lights use LEDs in the lighting fixture, energy wastage is minimalised and the lights are what are considered to be "dark sky friendly". That means that no illumination is wasted by shining into the sky and causing a glow around the whole facility. More important to this facility would be the fact that no light would shine into the areas used by the threatened and endangered species.
Solar powered street lights generally require very little maintenance with the batteries usually lasting at least 5 years. Other than that, the only maintenance requirements would be to ensure that the solar panels are kept clean. There are several products available to deter birds from landing on the panels and from fouling the solar cells.
