StreetLightNews

A 50/50 consortium between Skanska and John Laing has been appointed Preferred Bidder for a streetlight PFI scheme in Surrey, UK.The GBP 74 million project encompasses the design, build, finance and operation of all streetlights in Surrey over the next 25 years.

Within the first five years, Skanska is expected to replace 70,000 streetlights and refurbish another 18,000 lighting columns.

Using new energy-efficient equipment, the carbon impact of delivering street lighting services will be reduced.

See more here. 

In Vietnam, authorities are working on a draft law on improving and streamlining energy use. Currently, the country wastes an estimated US$ 1 million worth of energy every day due to inefficient energy usage.

Putting this money towards solutions in the LV grid such as substation monitoring and intelligent streetlight control would be a simple and fast way of installing energy saving solutions that pay for themselves relatively fast.

In Ho Chi Minh City, energy saving measures within streetlight have had a significant impact on the city’s CO₂ emissions. In the first half of 2009, Ho Chi Minh City has saved approximately 114.8 million kWh of electricity, according to the Director of the municipal Energy Conservation Center (ECC), Huynh Kim Tuoc.

In 2008, the city replaced 131,000 incandescent bulbs with more energy efficient bulbs, saving 220 million kWh.

The city expects to replace the remaining 200,000 incandescent bulbs by the compact bulbs by next year for the local public lighting.

All important roads which lead to Games venue, airport, hotels, stations, etc. are to be well lit as the Municipal Corporation of Delhi is spending around 40 million USD on improving the street lights prior to the Commonwealth Games in 2010.

A total of 125 roads are to be equipped with new street lights, thus covering hundreds of kilometres, works committee chairman Mahender Nagpal explains in an article brought in The Times of India.

The two first phases of the project are to be completed before the Games begin, and the last phase is taken up once the Games are over.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi is also carrying out repair and maintenance work on over six thousand high-mast lights in Delhi.

There seems to be a trend towards energy savings being used as branding for American cities. More and more are implementing solutions that lower energy consumption, and then use this in their marketing strategy. Whatever works!
In Yakima, Washington, LEDs are replacing both traffic signal lamps and traditional 200 Watt HPS lamps. Initial results show savings of over 50%. The 100 Watt LEDs provide ultra-white lights with good color rendering. Also, the new lamps lowers light polution and has a 15-year product life. Read the full article on SmartMoney.com.
As described in a previous entry, similar projects are under way, e.g. in Ann Arbor where they are planning on becoming the first American city to convert 100% of their street light to LEDs. See more here…

Wouldn’t it be brilliant if cities and towns did not have to rely on residents to report street light outages? Typing ‘street light’ into a search engine provides hundreds of hits on cities urging their inhabitants to report any outages. Some even offer coloured ribbons which can be tied around the poles in order to help maintenance crews locate them.

Several companies offer solutions which can improve maintenance procedures and increase control with the street lights: Amplex, Cristal Control and Streetlight.Vision.

In the Iraqi town of Fallujah, mostly known for insurgent activity, things have started to quiet down, allowing for an increased focus on rebuilding the infrastructure.

The US Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing efforts to equip the town’s east-west thoroughfare with solar powered street light. With 1,050 lighting points, this will be the biggest solar powered installation worldwide to date, according to the manufacturer, SEPCO.

The system is being installed at the rate of 20 poles per day, and besides Fallujah, 4 other Iraqi towns and 17 villages in Afghanistan have been equipped with solar electric lighting systems.

Read the full article here…

BBC News is reporting that more than 15,000 street light columns, or over 85% of the stock, will be replaced in Redcar and Cleveland, UK. The existing columns have passed their 25-year life expectancy, and another 2,500 street lights will be added over the next few years in order to raise the standard of the cities’ public lighting. It has been established that the distance between the existing lights is too large, so the additional 2,500 street lights will ensure better lid roads and improve safety for both motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians.

GE has recently decided to cease manufacturing of the relatively inefficient Low Pressure Sodium lamps. This follows a general market trend with a shift towards the newer HID technology with e.g. High Pressure Sodium lamps. These have a better color rendition and whiter output, which is believed to prevent accidents, improve reaction times and reduce crime. Furthermore, the lamps are more efficient, enabling fewer lights, less maintenance and compliance with dark skies recommendations. Read the full article at the Institution of Lighting Engineeers’ website…

In a New Yorker article, David Owen describes how dark skies are increasingly difficult to find. He states that most Americans are unable to see the Milky Way where they live. Obviously, the stars have not become dimmer, but excess light increasingly prevents us from seing the entire beauty of the skies at night.
According to Bortle’s Dark-Sky Scale, invented by John E. Bortle in 2001, nighttime skies rated 1 are as dark as in Galileo’s time. At the other end of the scale is New York with a dark-sky rating of 9.
But there are several ways of avoiding, or at least minimizing, the light pollution from urbanized areas. Naturally, improved street lights are a big factor in reducing the excess light. Not only through retrofitting the luminaires and bulbs, but also by controlling that the lights are turned off and posibly dimmed at the most optimal times. For more information on centralized control and dimming, see e.g. www.amplex.dk or www.streetlight-vision.com.
To read an abstract of the New Yorker-article, click here…

The Institution of Lighting Engineers, ILE, has an interesting website with news, upcoming events, etc. It provides information on all forms of interior and exterior lighting, including sports, road, flood, emergency, tunnel, security and festive lighting. Check out their website at http://www.ile.org.uk/