It is nice, returning home late in the evening, to see that the front door is lit. And there is no need to turn on the flashlight or strike out with a lighter to get the key into the well of the door lock. What can we say about the owners of private houses and summer cottages. In the dark, when there is no lantern in the courtyard, even a simple trip to the toilet can be fraught with a lot of surprises (a skate forgotten by your son, the rake that you did not hide in the barn).
Therefore, each owner inevitably faces the need to organize artificial lighting on his site. At the same time, paying for the electricity consumed by the lights burning all night, being in the yard only occasionally is very expensive and unreasonable.
The solution to this dilemma may be the installation of solar LED street lights on your site. By purchasing such a device, manufacturers provide it with an inexhaustible source of energy absolutely free. You only need to periodically disperse the clouds over the house during the day. This article tells about the pros and cons of operating such lamps.
What are solar panels made of and how do they work?
The general principle of operation is that sunlight in such devices is converted into electric current, charging the battery, which at night serves as an energy source for LED bulbs. By and large, solar-powered street wall LED lamps are miniature solar power plants, they have a similar principle of operation and a similar device:
- Solar panel - turns the energy of the sun into electricity. It is made from monocrystalline or polycrystalline (amorphous) silicon. In the first case, the panel has a higher productivity per unit surface and a longer service life than amorphous silicon transducers. They are used in expensive models of street LED solar-powered lamps and are usually coated with a protective film to protect against aggressive atmospheric exposure.
- Battery - serves to accumulate electricity from the solar panel. It feeds it to the device in the dark. As a rule, the battery consists of nickel-cadmium cells that provide the lamp until the morning (8-10 hours).
- Photocell - is responsible for turning on the street LED solar-powered lamp with a decrease in illumination (about 20 lux) and turning it off in the morning (10 lux).
- Battery charge controller - turns off the power of the lamp when the charge is too low, as well as supplying voltage to the battery if it is fully charged.
- Motion control device - serves to save battery power by connecting the lamp only if movement is fixed at a certain distance from the device. This is an optional feature and may not be present in all lighting devices of this type.
- Housing and mounting brackets - the model depends on the tasks solved by lighting and has many variations.
Types of Autonomous Lamps
Manufacturers offer an incredibly diverse range of lighting solutions for configuration, power and degree of protection of lamps from external influences. These are strict solar-powered street wall lamps, elegant graceful columns that illuminate the path in the garden, and even small lights that glide along the surface of the pond like small fireflies.
Installation Features
To illuminate a large area, powerful luminaires are also necessary, with a large number of LED elements, an increased battery capacity and an increased size of the solar panel. They are placed on high pillars or walls of buildings.
It should be provided that the ridge of the roof or the crown of a tree growing nearby does not block the access of sunlight to the photovoltaic panel. This rule is valid for the installation of any fixtures of this type, as well as the fact that the panel must be periodically wiped clean of dust and debris.
When installing flashlights near places with high humidity or in water, you must pay attention to the level of moisture protection (indicated in the passport on the product), it must be of IP44 or higher.
An elegant shape is typical of a solar-powered garden street lamp. As a result, they are poorly protected from mechanical stress, and therefore require delicate handling. Most often, lamps of this type have a leg-column with a pointed end to facilitate fixation in the ground, but do not use a hammer to install them.
Advantages of solar-powered luminaires
Let's look at the advantages of this type of lighting device:
- Environmentally friendly (not including battery recycling).
- Absolutely safe for people and animals - low voltage 12V is used.
- Economical and easy to install - work from the energy of the sun, do not require the supply of an electric cable.
- Highly mobile - can be installed anywhere where there is access to natural light.
- They work in a wide temperature range from -40 to +40 º.
- Extremely autonomous - switching on and off automatically depending on the degree of illumination.
- Long-life - high-quality models of fixtures can work up to 10 years or more.
Cons of street autonomous lighting
But this miracle of technology still has a number of rather serious drawbacks, and, choosing a similar lighting method, you need to consider them:
- Quite a high price, even for budget models.
- Low power compared to traditional lamps - for sufficient lighting, several autonomous light sources may be required.
- Full dependence on sunlight - in the shade or in cloudy weather, the battery charge may not be enough for the lamp to work until morning.
- Limited battery life - about 1000 cycles.
- Inexpensive models often fail with a sharp temperature difference.
Nevertheless, solar-powered LED streetlights are without a doubt an important step towards a brighter future for renewable energy.