Abstract
Energy saving in street lighting is garnering more interest and has become a priority in municipal management. Therefore, LED luminaires are gradually becoming prevalent in our cities. Beyond their energy/economic saving potential, quality in public lighting installations concerns aspects such as uniformity and glare which must be maintained if not improved in any installation renewal project using this technology. The high light intensity generated in a discrete point in LED packages and its directional nature result in significant deficiencies in these last two parameters. To soften these effects, translucent covers are being used as one of the most common solutions with the drawback of significant light intensity losses. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the behavior of LED luminaire’s polyamide-based optical covers manufactured with a laser-sintered process. These are designed to improve glare and uniformity output, to minimize light output reductions, and to be industrially manufactured with no increment of cost for their lighting equipment compared to conventional transparent polycarbonate solutions. A laboratory and field lighting test study has been applied to different covers with the same LED lamp and luminaire to compare the performance of three different solutions built with different polymeric materials and with different light transmission surface textures. The photometric results have been observed and discussed to demonstrate the ability to significantly improve the lighting performance of LED luminaires—illuminance and uniformity levels and discomfort and disability glare indexes— using an improved optic cover.
Highlights
According to the 2015 report published by the research and consulting firm Northeast Group (Plattsburgh, NY, USA) [1], there are currently 304 million streetlights in the world and this number will increase up to 352 million by 2025
We present the results of the comparison evaluation process of three different solutions: one high-impact transparent polycarbonate and two translucent polyamide-based developments: one initial basic solution generated and the solution manufactured that offers the best results under the considerations of minimizing glare, as well as energy efficiency losses
Luminous flux and light output performance, and disability and discomfort glare were measured using a goniphotometer and, a field test was conducted on a real urban street, comparing the light levels found on the road expressed in terms of mean illuminance and mean and extreme uniformity
Summary
According to the 2015 report published by the research and consulting firm Northeast Group (Plattsburgh, NY, USA) [1], there are currently 304 million streetlights in the world and this number will increase up to 352 million by 2025. In Germany, this factor accounts for almost one third of the total amount of its municipality’s funds [2]. This fact provides a strong incentive for municipalities to take the lead in using more efficient technologies; the 2010 Covenant of Mayors agreement (signed by 4400 EU municipality partners) promoted working on sustainable energy action plans, with the objective of reaching the 3 × 20 goals by the Energies 2018, 11, 816; doi:10.3390/en11040816 www.mdpi.com/journal/energies. The public outdoor lighting market is undergoing a period of change, where conventional streetlights are being replaced with new and more efficient technologies like LEDs, to optimize electrical costs, improve the reliability of the lighting facilities and to obtain political credit through environmental awareness [4]. Valentová and others [7] published a report of the status of 106 LED test cases from 17 European countries with an average energy saving of
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