(Nomination for 2011 AUREA Award): Ledlight - Street LED lighting

The company Energy Lite Electronics has invented an energy-efficient lamp for use as part of a street lighting system. This technological solution is based on the control of high-power LED light emitters. The lamp consumes 26 W and its lighting characteristics make it equivalent to incadescent lamps of up to 150 W. The lamp is based on LED light emitters and is ideal for illuminating streets, parks, parking lots and other outdoor areas. With the high luminous efficacy of 90 lm/W and clearly pointed light, 95% of energy is utilized, while the expected life exceeds 50,000 hours (over 12 years). The lamp also meets the highest ecological standards (95% less harmful) because, unlike mercury and sodium bulbs, LED does not emit harmful UV rays. The temperature of the light color it emits is about 6,000 K, which is closest to the temperature of daylight.

This form of lighting cuts costs of lighting by 70%, thus affecting the investment’s payback period, which is about 5 years. The lamp’s main characteristics are stability and reliability so that public lighting maintenance costs are also reduced. It we take a city of the size of Novi Sad as an example, the annual savings will amount to about RSD 100 million.

INNOVATION

The innovative solution of the company Energy Lite Electronics is the lamp voltage controller (ST controller) for high-power LED light emitters. Thanks to the lamp voltage controller, the lamp’s voltage output is constant and only 5 to 8% of energy is lost, which is a significant progress when compared to previous similar solutions (over 20% of energy lost in the process). Heat dissipation is also reduced, which affects the robustness of the housing and makes the final product significantly cheaper.

The advantages of this lamp voltage controller (ST controller) are: lower consumption – up to 26 W, lower percentage of energy loss - 5-8%, long life – 50,000 hours. This solution is modular so it can be applied to other types of LED lighting as well.

The lamp ELE24-SSL consumes 70% less electric energy than the lamps in use in our country. In spite of lower energy consumption, it produces the same amount of light. When turned on, the lamp does not emit harmful radiation and does not heat the atmosphere. Drastic reduction of electric energy consumption (by over 70%), five times longer life (over 12 years) and a reduced need for public lighting maintenance lead to large savings and permanent reduction of earmarked funds in the budget of the local self-government. The voltage control solution ensures that lamps are always on, regardless of changes in the grid voltage. We should also not forget the aluminum housing that does not contain any breakable parts and is resistant to acts of vandalism. The lamp is mounted on a pole or carrier (ø60mm) at the height of 4 to 6 meters.

Energy Lite lamp is based on LED diodes as the primary sources of light. The average luminous efficacy of these new sources goes up to 80 lm/W. Also, extremely long life make them very attractive, as well as their greater mechanical robustness. Incandescent bulbs are much cheaper, but their luminous efficacy is only 16 lm/W when common bulbs are used, that is, up to 22 lm/W when halogen bulbs are used.

Advantages of LED light bulbs:

- Unlike incandescent reflector and halogen light bulbs, LED light bulbs do not require installation of an external reflector to point the light they emit.

- Extremely firmly placed in the housing resistant to mechanical shocks.

- Extremely long life: 10 years, twice longer than the life of the best fluorescent bulbs and even 20 times longer than the life of the best incandescent bulbs.

Disadvantages:

The biggest disadvantage in the use of LED technology is a high price of the accompanying electronic equipment because LED requires a power supply transformer, which significantly affects the price. For that reason, special attention is paid to the preliminary design of a power supply unit taking into account the stability, quality and, of course, the price of the design of a power supply transformer.

The lamp design and all technical solutions are developed by the team of Energy Lite Electronics.

SOCIAL UTILITY

Insufficient and inappropriate street lighting affects the traffic safety (causes an increased number of traffic accidents with pedestrians as the most usual victims) and leads to vandalism and an increased rate of crime. In poorly lit parts of the city, people feel insecure and avoid walking along such streets, which lowers the quality of life of citizens.

The use of old lighting systems results in high maintenance costs and insufficiently high costs of consumed electric energy. These costs are covered by citizens and they indirectly affect the quality of life of the poorest. Also, current solutions are not environment-friendly because mercury and sodium bulbs emit harmful UV rays. LED bulb is 95% less harmfull.

Ledlight is an energy-efficient street lamp whose life is five times longer and maintenance costs are much lower than it is the case with all other types of lighting systems that are currently in use. It also saves 70% of energy.

According to the data provided by the Electric Power Company of Serbia (EPS), a total of 25 million euros were spent on public lighting in 2008, while the use of Ledlight lamps would have saved about 70% of that amount.

FINANCIAL POTENTIAL

A great interest is already expressed in Ledlight lamps, especially by the local community, because an investment in such form of street lighting can be returned in 4 or 5 years if the price of electricity remains at the current level.

The company has already visited potential buyers – municipalities of Backa Palanka, Irig, Bac and Sremski Karlovci, each of which is very interested in the innovative product. After getting familiar with the characteristics of Ledlight lamps, the municipality of Backa Palanka, which already had in plan to reconstruct the public lighting, has asked us to send the offer. The amount of the offer is RSD 50 million and it equals the five-year savings that the use of Ledlight lamps would create for that municipality.

If Ledlight is your favorite for the innovative investment of the year, you can cast a vote for this nominee on the official website Aurea 2011.

Energy lite electronics d.o.o. Futog

eKapija.com Beograd

Elektroprivreda Srbije ad Beograd