LIGHTING 9
These smart city technologies will not only dramatically improve the information available to councils and other public agencies , but some of the new services they will enable for the community could also provide new sources of revenue .
Renewable Energy Systems
Another very important rapidly developing technology is Solar Photo-voltaic ( PV ) electricity generation . Its rapidly improving economic performance is set to have a fundamental effect on the electricity sector and consequently the street lighting sector . Its ability to power the modest needs of lighting , controls and smart city sensors independently of the distributed monopoly networks is likely to substantially change the street lighting landscape over the lifetime of this infrastructure .
The cost of all types of solar PV electricity has reduced substantially in recent times . In some parts of Australia , the cost of solar PV electricity generation has reached grid parity150 and therefore solar PV powered street lighting may be economic in remote location applications and increasingly elsewhere as the cost of LED luminaires , solar PV panels , control systems and battery storage steadily decreases . The power requirement for an LED luminaire to deliver a standards-compliant lighting solution is also decreasing , meaning that the required off-grid energy generation and storage capacity is further reducing .
Solar PV street lighting systems can be on-grid or offgrid . Those that are on-grid have no battery storage and are connected to the electricity distribution system . When electricity is generated by on- pole solar panels during the day it is sold to the grid and used by other consumers at that time . At night , the street lighting system draws electricity from the distribution system as it would normally . There may be a notional matching of the solar capacity to the luminaire consumption but they are not actually linked in any way .
Off-grid systems represent a major departure from current Australian practice but are widely deployed internationally . No electrical connection is required to the electricity distribution system and electricity generated during the day is stored in batteries for use at night . The additional cost of batteries and power management systems can make the economics challenging , but can be suitable for locations that require expensive new underground cable trenching and reticulation . Typically , locations more than 20-30m from existing grid connection warrant consideration of solar options .
Beyond solar , small wind turbines can be mounted on street light columns and having two sources of renewable electricity may be useful , but the economics of such systems have yet to be widely demonstrated .
Solar PV on-grid column ( Petra Systems )
GOVLINK ยป ISSUE 1 2017