Solar Led Street Lights is the next big thing that will definitely take the world by storm. Considering the importance of solar street lights I will focus on them and the reasons for India not being able to use them here-:
Let us chalk out a few tough hard hitting facts about solar energy and power generation.
Firstly, it is expensive to produce electricity from solar power. Quite a lot of solar panels in the market are not very reliable due to a lot of factors ranging from adherence to standards to cheap components. Since it`s a new technology consistent innovation is taking place.A good solar powered street light project must be able to provide enough light to illuminate the area under its sphere. So, each solar powered lamp that is supposed to illuminate, must provide this light when it is needed the most ie. when darkness comes knocking my friend! Solar powered LED street lights must store enough energy in the battery backup for use during the time rainfall or low to no sunshine. They should not lose their charm even during winters.
Here are some more reasons why solar powered street lights have already run into problems with regards to reliability and performance.
Incorrect Sizing-
Incorrect sizing of components that forge a complete working mechanism for solar energy generation, storage and supply system.
Number of Hours factor-
The number of hours the illumination is supposed to be provided is calculated and a good estimate is settled for, based on the number of sun hours in any given day at a given place and fixed allowances made for those days you may be without the sun shining.
Finally, while solar energy generation is expensive it is the most suitable medium in the future for solar powered street lights considering the low maintenance overhead and long life span of LEDs as against the old fluorescent, incandescent based lighting units.
However, that being said, incorrect and improper sizing of both the load and the components can effortlessly turn a viable cost effective solution into a terrible nightmare because should you go wrong with the calculations including energy losses in conversion stages (wherever applicable) or the interfacing components, you may realize that changing the Solar Panel to deliver more energy may not be enough as you would have to also consider changing other accessories along with it such as batteries, etc. in order to be able to store what is being generated and the entire lighting unit itself may have to be changed too.
