DEVELOPMENT OF MEASURES TO IMPROVE THE OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY OF AUTONOMOUS LIGHTING COMPLEXES FOR UKRAINIAN HIGHWAYS

Abstract

Reducing highway hazards through the creation of modern lighting systems is an important practical task that currently has some difficulties. The rapid development of renewable energy makes it possible to use off-the-shelf solutions to create autonomous lighting complexes for unregulated pedestrian crossings. The analysis of peculiarities of design, constructive structure and operation of autonomous lighting complexes, which are located in Kharkiv region and use renewable energy sources and energy storage systems to power lighting devices and flashing signal lights, is carried out. The analysis results showed that the lighting complexes under investigation are not capable of supplying sufficient energy for themselves and of functioning properly at low insolation and low ambient temperatures. The reasons for the unstable operation of autonomous lighting complexes have been identified, with the main one being the insufficient accuracy of taking into account the actual climatic operating conditions of facilities when forming design solutions. Measures have been developed to improve the efficiency of the autonomous lighting complexes under study, involving the use of off-the-shelf technical solutions based on modern tools and technologies. A criterion for sufficiency of the developed measures to solve the problem of autonomous power supply of lighting complexes for highways is proposed. The sign of the resulting capacity of the complex over the calculation time period is taken as a sufficiency criterion. The practical use of the developed criterion confirmed the feasibility of the proposed measures to improve the operational efficiency of the investigated autonomous lighting complexes for highways. Calculations have shown that it is not sufficient to use solar panels alone to supply highway lighting complexes located in regions with unstable levels of insolation. The feasibility of hybrid power supply systems for autonomous lighting complexes that use additional power sources such as wind turbines and systems with electromechanical converters in addition to solar panels has been quantitatively confirmed.