TITLE:
Development of a Smart Solar-Powered LED Street Lighting System for Greener Community
AUTHORS:
Warlito M. Galita
KEYWORDS:
Solar, Street Lighting, Smart, LED, Green Community
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.2 No.3,
March
10,
2015
ABSTRACT: The major objective
of the study was to design and develop a Smart Solar-Powered LED Street
Lighting System for a Greener Community. The project is different from
conventional street lighting systems not only in the sense that it uses solar
energy, but more importantly, it is also a stand alone device that provides for
an efficient energy management program that ensures effective maintenance and
reduced energy wastage due to malfunctioning lighting controls. In addition, it
is much cheaper to fabricate and maintain as compared with its commercially
available counterparts. One important feature of the project is that it
automatically controls the brightness of the LED lamp depending on a particular
time of day, especially in cases where full level illumination is not needed,
thus reducing power consumption. It automatically activates and deactivates
lighting depending on the hours whereby daylight is sensed, thus ensuring a
continuous cycle of charging and discharging the storage battery for maximum
efficiency. All of these functions are possible since the project uses a controller,
allowing for variable settings of time activation as well as brightness level,
depending on the preference of the end-users. The project functioned according
to expectations, being a cheaper and environment-friendly alternative as
compared with its commercially available counterparts. It also provided a cost-effective approach to
managing street lighting systems in a wide variety of applications.