Self-contained LED street lighting from Greenbridge Energy Australia

Thanks to a new light source with luminous diodes (LED), the new KFV/LED photovoltaic solar streetlight marks an important turning point when it comes to self-contained lighting systems by introducing new standards of efficiency, reliability and running economy that would have been impossible until only a few years ago.

The KFV/LED streetlight features the following characteristics:

• It emits a white light thus, illumination being equal, the human eye perceives colours and details in a much better way;
• Guaranteed ignition throughout the night;
• One-way light emission, thus a total absence of light pollution;
• The road surface is illuminated to a greater extent than when low pressure sodium vapour lamps of equal power are used;
• Longer lasting than any type of filament or gaseous discharge lamp. The average life prior to a failure (MTBF) is about 100,000 hours;
• Very highly reliable, since the light source is formed by lots of independent units;
• The luminous power can be adjusted;
• The system is not affected by the ambient temperature, so there is no difficulty in turning on the lamps in colder climates.

Performance Comparisons Between a Sodium Vapour Lamp and a LED Lamp

The three drawings compare the performance, both as to electricity consumption and light emitting efficiency, of a standard street armature with a low pressure sodium vapour lamp and a KFV/LED light source in the two configurations with 12 and 18 LEDs. The illumination data given in the graphs were certified by Istituto Giordano - www.giordano.it - The test was conducted by considering the following standards:

• UNI EN 13201-3:2004 of 01/09/2004 "Road lighting - Part 3: Calculation of performance,"
• UNI EN 13032-1:2005 of 01/01/2005 "Light and lighting - Measurement and presentation of photometric data of lamps and l'uminaires - Part 1: Measurement and file format."

It will be more than evident that although the LED lamp consumes about 50% less energy (picture in the center), its light emitting performance is more or less equivalent (8.7 lux for the SOX lamp and 7.4 lux for the lamp with 12 LEDs) while with a consumption of an equal entity (2.1 A for the lamp with 18 LED and 2.3 A for the SOX lamp) the light emitting efficiency of the LED source is decidedly higher (10.8 lux for the lamp with 18 LED). Besides this very important parameter, one must also consider that the light produced by the LED source is WHITE in colour. The light intensity is very easy to regulate and the LED lamp is extremely long-lasting and reliable, much more so that the low pressure sodium vapour lamp.