Shire push
for savings on street lighting.
Wayne Prangnell is Director of Engineering
at the Augusta Margaret River Shire. He's questioning the energy provider's
willingness to adopt more environmentally friendly practices.The circuit in
Figure 1 brightcrystal is an LED
light bulb for a landscape-lighting system
Without competition to drive
innovation, Western Power has no inducement to accelerate the change from
incandescent street lighting to energy saving fluorescents, he believes.
"I don't think that Western Power have quite the same motivation that
the shire does because at the end of the day, the shire's picking up the bill.
The shire's in the front line with the community," he says.
Shires pay
for street lighting, Wayne explains, which isn't metered and the cost is
determined on a kilowatt per hour usage calculation. More efficient globes
should result in lower charges to local government,A lot of research was led lights conducted and the only
solution that could be reached is to replace the existing lights with a certain
type he says.
Western Power is replacing incandescent bulbs but is far
too slow in making the changes, says Wayne. With no competition and with spare
generation capacity during the off peak hours of night, there is no incentive to
change or improve the service they provide, he believes.
"When talking
about street lights, one of the biggest costs is replacing the bulbs," he says.
Compact fluorescents have a much longer life span, he points out.
"In
addition to the energy saving, we should be getting operational and maintenance
savings because the cost that we paying to Western Power also covers the
allowance for replacing street bulbs."
Other innovations are possible,
says Wayne. "In Norway, street lights have a sensor and when no one is near it,
they would drop the light levels by about half.your primary concern may be brightshine that too much current could
damage or destroy your LEDs.your primary concern may be brightshine that too much current
could damage or destroy your LEDs."
Wayne also has an issue with lights
in uninhabited subdivisions, a practice that he realised on a drive between
Busselton and Margaret River, passing subdivisions where no houses were built
"but we had the lights blazing all night".
Western Power had switched on
the lights and had simply added the cost to the Augusta Margaret River bill
without authorisation, says Wayne. For many months, lights were on but no one
was home.
"We ask householders to turn off lights and save energy...yet
on the other hand we were partly responsible for these lights being on all
night," he says.
The Shire made representation to Western Power over the
Cowaramup subdivision street lighting but received, to Wayne, an unsatisfactory
answer. "They said, 'It's too hard to turn them off.ZDDT takes pride in the
active role it has led light bulbs
played by providing the linkage to bring together the City of Bulawayo and AEC
in this essential partnership'
"That's the wrong answer. We should be
working out what's the right thing to do and working out how we do it.
"Interestingly five years ago, in the South West, there was a policy
that the lights weren't energised until the shire asked for it."
# by brightshineh | 2011-07-27 16:09 | led lights
