Environmental and Economic Impacts of Lighting Highways Using Photo-Voltaic Panels

Abstract

The renewable energy sources in power generation globally increases rapidly over time. This paper presents a novel technique of street lighting by using off-grid solar energy system. The electrical power is generated from solar panels at the day time and stored in batteries and consequently, discharged in the street lamps at night. The charging, discharging and their rates rate are controlled obviously by charger controller. Highway road is selected in this study. Several aspects are optimized in this study. Number of columns, columns types, lamp arms, columns distance and the backup storage limits are studied. The sizing of the individual solar stations in terms of economic and environmental feasibility are optimized. New power saving technique will apply advanced methods to reduce the storage capacity and power consumption to enhance the economic feasibility of the suggested system. In addition, the life time of storage batteries is increased. The most appropriate technique is selected in terms of economic and environmental feasibility by comparing all the different cases suggested in this study. Finally, the best case for solar street lighting project is compared to the normal or conventional system to show the economic and environmental potentiality of using renewable energy, especially solar energy. Experimental solar energy street lighting system with power saving is implemented in this study.