Hybrid Street Lights Take Security 'Off the Grid'
Chicago Suburb Lights Neighborhood with Solar and Wind Power
Space-Age Street Lights
Powered by a dedicated solar panel and a small wind turbine, this hybrid street light is similar to those installed by Downers Grove, Ill., in 2010. The lights are designed to last for 100,000 hours, as opposed to those used in traditional systems that need replacing after just 10,000 hours. Over a period of 30 years, the hybrid streetlights will save more than 500,000 kilowatts of electricity and reduce CO2 emissions by almost 350 tons.
Kevin Bobikiewicz
Kevin Bobikiewicz is public services coordinator for Downers Grove, Ill.
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3 comments:
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JohnT posted at 3:29 pm on Mon, Apr 8, 2013.
I have done work in this area and I am not surprised by the outages dgwatch has indicated.
As much as I am also a proponent of green technologies, it does not make sense to deploy this technology where readily available electricity exists.
The $285,000 I would assume is installed. These are pretty easily to install. I would agree with your 1/2 price of normal poles, as reliable LED lights and a more reliable installation overall. Not to mention, the grid connected version may have been accomplished with 20 or 15 poles, not 25 as higher powered lights could be been used.
It is a complete fallacy to call these 100,000 hours maintenance free. That would represent over 20 years of lighting, but lets assume 20 years for reference.
There would be the requirement for at least 3 replacement sets of batteries per pole, 2 per pole, or 150 batteries at likely $250 each installed or $37,500 .... if they last at least 5 years. If you already have outages, then that is doubtful.
The LEDs may last 20 years, but the wind turbines absolutely will not and certainly will require maintenance. If they last 10 years be happy. So let's say 10 replaced plus another 10 overhauled ... say another $20,000 at todays costs (or more?).
One should also add that predicting wind energy in an urban environment, even Chicago is exceedingly difficult if not impossible. Hence again I am not surprised you have a bunch of units not working. It is hard enough to predict wind in the open, let alone an urban environment with growing trees. Wind is not nearly as predictable as sun either .....
And lets talk about wind in an urban environment. In an urban environment, wind is very turbulent. That turbulence leads to more rapid failure of wind turbines.
The maintenance costs on these will easily strip that of electricity. I predict them to be wired up at some point after people get fed up with the outages. These units do not have anywhere to add more batteries so you are sort of stuck.
dgwatch posted at 6:30 pm on Sun, Mar 3, 2013.
From the article, 25 poles at $285,000 works out to just over $11,000 per pole, not including the costs of 25 new wireless controllers. . Easily more than twice as much as a standard wired pole, and much more than the "slightly more" indicated in the article. Even with electric costs added in, poles must be 100% reliable for cost estimates provided. It's March 3, 2013, and eight of the poles are not working, a full third of the system, also much more than the "two" from last year. At least 8 more Deep cycle batteries needed for next year. And it was a soft winter here this year. How many will be out in 2014?
tmclark posted at 8:29 am on Thu, Jul 19, 2012.
What are the cost of these units?