Solar LED Street Light Test

Solar LED street lighting has been talked about more and more these days.  It adopts the green energy supply technology – photovoltaic (PV) panel with sun power that will never exhaust.

Another advantage of using LED lighting is that it consumes lower energy and has longer life compared to the old compact fluorescent lighting (CFL). Lower energy consumption also means there will be a decrease in carbon dioxide (CO2) emission, sulfur oxide or other waste that is harmful to the environment.  The average life span for the LED is approx. 50,000 hrs whereas the CLF is only 8,000 hrs. This indirectly helps to reduce the maintenance cost of replacing light bulbs.

Solar LED street lights got popular at remote locations where electricity is not available or irregular. Today, it is common in the urban areas with the independency of conventional power supply and the energy efficiency towards the green energy.

Figure 1  New Solar LED street light adjacent to the electricity street light





Solar LED street light consists of 5 main parts: Luminaire, solar panel, battery, pole and a system that consists of a module to integrate the LED driver function and the solar charger to battery. The electronic module is housed in the luminaire which is mounted at a few meters height. 

During the installation, a person has to climb on the pole and check on the electronic module for its complete functionality. This takes more than 10 minutes and has to be monitored by the person on the pole. By connecting to Agilent Wireless Remote Connectivity Solution, there can be one person monitoring measurement results on the ground while another person probes for readings using the Agilent handheld multimeter. 

Figure 2 Agilent wireless remote connectivity solution

 Sometimes, the worker needs to climb on the pole to check and monitor the PV panel, battery, or LED side parameter for any fault for extended hours. A wireless metering/monitoring device with data logging would help to save the time and effort of staying on the pole.

Using the Agilent Wireless Connectivity solution, the worker can now comfortably capture and monitor the measurement reading on the ground while the Agilent handheld multimeter can be easily secured on the pole with its hanging kit. The measurement results are transmitted via Bluetooth adaptor to an  Android tablet or phone of the worker for further analysis.