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Street lights to be replaced with LEDs
Add your own comment to the debate on LEDs, OLEDs, street lighting
Ann Arbor, a city in the US, 35 miles west of Detroit, is claiming to be the first to convert 100 percent of its downtown streetlights to LED technology.
Beginning next month, it's planning to install over 1 000 LED streetlights, a move that is expected to save the city over $100 000 per year and cut down annual greenhouse emissions of CO2 by 294 tons.
Ann Arbor, which has 114 000 residents is frequently named as best place to work, retire, live.., and is one of a growing community of LED City government and industry partners whose motto is to "Improve quality of life".
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9 Comments
Hard to get excited about such a news because it sounds so NORMAL. All cities should be doing that now!
Over here in the UK we have round orange lights beside pedestrian crossings on roads - they are called 'Belisha beacons' after the transport minister who introduced them, Leslie Hore-Belisha, and Wikipedia claims you can also find them in Hong Kong and Signapore.
In the last few months I've noticed that the incandescent bulbs at the centre of the globes have been removed, and replaced with a set of orange LEDS attached to a black plastic ring placed vertically over the globe. It's presumably more energy-efficient, I expect they will last a lot longer than the bulbs and of course they are directional, so the flashing orange light is only visible from the road and doesn't illuminate the bedrooms of those living nearby :-)
In India we have heared about the use of LED , but use as street lights is first known. iam interested to know more about it as it is indeed a nice idea which will save power and will serve in rural areas of my counrty where low volage is a common phenomena. josecharlesbis@hotmail.com
LED as such may not be there, something like OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) might be in use. OLEDs are suitable as Concentrated Light Source, where as LEDs are just as a display light. Still, LEDs as combination might be there with the Street Lights, since the concentrated light function is not an issue. OLEDs are there as the future Energy Efficient Light Source to replace the present day Energy Efficient Light Source, CFL.
I'm not so excited about the LED's because they don't travel far. So whats the ideal height for the street light? The ones I've seen are good for large coverage. I guess we need to remeber that in a car like a new HONDA ACCORD these LED's are used as TAIL-LIGHTS....and not as the HEAD-LIGHTS. It only tells me that they are not so good at travelling distance, but really as TRAFFIC LIGHTS etc that is they are basically noticable
What this means is that not ALL manufacturers of LED's can get it right. So be careful before you purchase a lamp. In other words I would not use them as HIGHWAY street lights. I'd stick to LPS and CFL for now.
#6 by Francisco A. Celaya Gomez on November 9, 2007 at 10:25 a.m.
Greetings! As the coming and actual lighting systems is good to hear the notice of continuous development of light emitting diodes. Of couse is the future.
As the economic and enviromental reason, I think the LED will push the light on street forward.
We have been using LED lamps for indicators on electrical panels for many years now. This has mainly been driven by the increased life expectancy.
For street lighting the increased life will reduce maintenance costs.
Bigger and better, or should I say brighter? That seems to be the battle for winning space in Times Square, New York.
Only last year, on 31 December, this very same spot on 42nd Street between Broadway and Seventh Avenue was the site of the relaunch of an old tradition, a twice brighter LED-lit New Year's Eve Ball which replaced the previous model illuminated by 600 incandescent and halogen bulbs.
Now, the Walgreen Company, the largest drugstore chain in the US, is putting up a huge new sign (the above is an artist's impression) aimed to be operational later this year that uses 12 million red, green and blue LEDs which can be programmed to display a trillion colours in synchronised animation, clearly visible over three sides of the building, even in the bright afternoon sun of New York.
And, where the New Year's Eve Ball was launched in an atmosphere of preservation of tradition with greater regard to energy efficiency, this effort seems almost indecent: 200 hard disks to control the functionality, 16.6 miles of power and data cables, 30 tons of steel supports, over half a million nuts, bolts and screws. It's thought to have cost in excess of $15 million.
Obviously, ROI weighs heavier than the tax of a little extra wasted electrical energy. The expected returns in the collection of advertising fees are huge.
Not to be outdone, another tycoon has launched a new project in downtown LA for an even more monster billboard. Perhaps it won't get through the planning stages. Who knows where all this will stop.