TECHNOLOGY FOCUS Radar-controlled street lighting
For intelligent street lighting control, think intelligent radar detection, says Ian Hind, commercial director of AGD Systems
Seeing the light T
here is an increasing focus on what can be done to reduce energy consumption. With the Euro-
pean Commission’s challenging target to achieve a 20 per cent reduction in EU greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels and to increase Europe’s energy efficiency by 20 per cent just six years away in 2020, the pressure is on to reduce environmental impacts and improve overall energy effi- ciency. As global energy prices escalate, road traffic authorities need to make sub- stantial cost savings across the transporta- tion system. Street lights, which were once a ‘taken
for granted’ item on the road’s exist- ing infrastructure, have become a very hot topic and a focus for local and city authorities tasked with substantially cut- ting greenhouse emissions by at least 80 per cent by 20501
.
The scale of the issue is illustrated by the fact that industry experts argue as much as
50
15-20 per cent of all electricity consumed worldwide is for street lighting. The UK alone has approximately 7.4 million street lights and over £300 million is spent annu- ally on energy for streetlights2
. Further-
more, some 30 per cent of a typical city authority’s budget is spent on street lighting – a sizeable proportion of its expenditure. In recent years, the most important
energy-saving measure to date has been the move towards replacing existing lumi- naires with LED lights. For over 30 years, LEDs have been used in everything from cars to kitchens but it is only recently, in the last five years that the move to LED outdoor lighting has gathered pace with the technology improving rapidly and costs falling quickly3
. Research by McK-
insey shows that costs have been consist- ently dropping by 30 per cent a year and by 2020, the energy saving compared to today’s conventional lighting is expected to reach 90 per cent4
.
smarthighways.net However, this does not solve the core
issue of how to save the vast amounts of energy used to fully illuminate roads at times when there is very little or no traffic and lighting streets and public areas when there are no pedestrians around.
‘INTELLIGENT’ LIGHTING LEADING THE WAY This is where radar-enabled dynamic street lighting control comes in. Using its intelligent radar detection technology, AGD Systems can help authorities and lighting manufacturers reduce the energy consumption of street lighting systems by providing traffic-adaptive, dynamic street lighting control; ensuring that lighting levels can be adjusted safely and reliably, depending on specific traffic volumes at particular times. This creates a fully interactive, intelli-
gent lighting solution in which, at certain key times, when the radars detect consist-
Vol 2 No 1 smartHIGHWAYS
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