Date: 9 September 2011

SOLAR STREET LAMP WITH MOTION SENSOR

INTRODUCTION -

This street lamp can be used for night lighting at the gate, garden, schools &
colleges, hospitals, car parking areas. This is an effort at night lighting the
environment friendly & cost effective way.

Solar street lamps don't depend of far away generating stations burning large
amounts of coal, don't need 1000's of kms of grid wiring, substations,
underground wiring etc. Their daily energy consumption & maintainence is
expected to cost less than Rs 1 per night while a sodium vapor lamp would cost
Rs 10 - 15 per night.
The solar panels have a life of 25 years, the LED lamps have a life of 10 years
(should last more as LED's glow on a low power mode most the time and are
thus under less stress), the charge controller 10 years, batteries around 9 years.
The light intensity at the road is approx 10 LUX in the bright mode. The solar
panel installation is relatively simple and needs just 2 men around 2 hours to fix
this up. You don't really need heavy cranes or other machines to do the
installation.

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SIGNIFICANCE -

The significance of this solar street lamp is its extremely low power consumption.
It use's LED lamps which are the most efficient lighting technologies
commercially available as on date. It uses an extremely low approx 2W of power
in stand by mode and switches to a full 10W power as soon as it senses motion in
a 5 meter radius. So the lamps do not have to be lit at high intensity for the
complete 12 hours of night which leads to saving of battery bank requirements,
solar panel requirements. Also the low consumption helps sail through times of
extremely low sunlight and winter conditions. In a way the lamp salutes and
recognizes your presence. Also it would scare away thieves.

In this design, the battery box is kept close under the solar panel which prevents
heating of the batteries under sunlight as the ideal battery temperature is 25 C
while summer heat can be close to 50 C. Further, the metal box is insulated from
inside to prevent the batteries in coming with contact with the hot metal box.
This also prevents the chances of a short circuit in case the battery terminals
come in contact with the metal battery box. Further the sealed lead acid batteries
used in this street lamp do not need water monitoring or regular distilled water
top ups.

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 LAMP HIGH POWER VIEW

ENERGY CALCULATIONS

Lets assume the motion sensor triggers the lamp 100 times a night sensing
human / car presence and it glows for 10 seconds each time, this would be 100
times x 10 seconds = 1000 seconds at full power, which is 1000/ 60 = 16.67
minutes at full power. Lets assume the lamp had to run at full power for 30
minutes or 1/2 hour x 10 W = 5 Wh for lighting at full power + 2 W x 11.5 hours
= 23 Wh for the low power mode lighting for 11.5 hours the total energy demand
is 5 Wh (High) + 23 Wh (Low) = 28 Wh of energy is needed. In comparison each
of the 12V, 7 Ah batteries stores 84 Wh and since their are 2 batteries the
batteries in total can store 84 x 2 = 168 Wh. This means once the batteries are
full charged they can power the lamps for 168 Wh / 28 Wh = 6 nights of lighting
without any sun shine charging. This is especially useful during rainy / winter
days. Further this means that only 16% of the battery energy is being used
during the normal sunshine days, so the batteries maintain a high level of energy
which could allow the battery a life of 3000 cycles or 3000 / 365 = 8 years approx.

This is further helped by the fact that the batteries have 8 hours of sunshine to
recharge and 12 hours of night to discharge and ideally batteries like to charged /
discharged slowly. Even after their 8-9 years they will still have some value as the
infrastructure to recycle lead acid batteries is already present and these 9 year
old batteries will still fetch you a rebate at the battery shop.

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 LAMP LOW POWER VIEW

The 25W solar panel generates 2.5 Amps of current in bright sunshine, which is
12V x 2.5 A = 30 Wh. This means that the solar panel can meets the street lamps
night energy demand (28 Wh) in just 1 hour of bright sunshine. For cloudy
weather there in some light available for 8 hours to allow the battery charging.
Besides the battery bank allows sailing through 6 days of bad weather. This lamp
can be used practically anywhere where sunlight intensity is at least 150 W /
square meter.

SPECIAL FEATURE - We coat the solar panel cover glass with a special
chemical that prevents dust from sticking on to the solar panel cover glass. This
facilitates easy cleaning of the solar panel. A light breeze or shower is enough to
allow a natural easy cleaning of the solar panel cover glass.

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SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS -

1. 25W solar panel - generate current to charge the batteries when exposed to
sunlight
2. Solar panel supporting mount
3. 12V 5A charge controller - prevents battery overcharging, shows battery
energy levels, has a fuse
4. Battery box - 2 hold 2 x 12V, 7AH SMF batteries ( BATTERIES NOT
INCLUDED - will need to be sourced locally for US $15 x 2 = US $30)
5. Light sensor - automatically starts power supply when dark
6. Trip circuit - allow a high / low voltage to the LED lamp
7. 360 Degree, 12V DC motion sensor
8. L support & motion sensor cover
9. 10W - 6 LED lamp - 12V DC : Give light at night
10. Lamp mounting bend pipe
11. 0.95 meter x 3 poles
12. 3 x sockets
13. Base plate
14. 0.4 meter ground insertion pipe
15. Installation guide

The solar panels, charge controller, batteries, motion sensor, LED lamps are all
matured technologies. This lamp has been designed to fairly high degree of
reliability.

LIMITATIONS

1. Solar panels need to be installed in an area open to sunshine - trees,

buildings may prevent sunlight from reaching the solar panel.
2. Sunlight intensity needs to be at least 150 W per square meter. Solar
panels perform best at 1000 W per square meter.
3. If the solar panel needs to be mounted in an area prone to storms you may
need to concretize the base.
4. If at least 4 or more street lamps are to be installed in a certain place we
can use a central position for the solar panels and batteries, and power the
lamps using a small inverter with AC DC adaptors on the lamps. This
saves costs on solar panels mounts, battery box fabrication and allows easy
maintenance of solar panels and batteries. Gives additional security for
solar panels & batteries and also the street lamp would be less prone to
storm damage.
5. These lamps have a low height of approx 3 meters and cannot be used on
highways or roads where trucks may need to pass.