Streets lights do not consume a lot of energy and it doesn’t look like the place to look if you’re trying to save energy, right?
Tell that to Norway. They’re one of those countries who like to do things differently. It’s not surprising then that over there, they’re eyeing this type of LED street light which smartly varies its brightness levels to save electricity, depending on how much the light is needed at each point in time.
The lights dim automatically to 20% of their capacity when the roads are empty (let’s say from late night to dawn) and only shine at full capacity when a vehicle, cyclist or pedestrian is moving on the road.
A radar sensor attached to the street lights is able to detect when a vehicle or pedestrian is approaching and turns the lights up to their full brightness.
The purpose of the street lights are to conserve energy and reduce the country’s carbon footprint.
On a five-mile stretch of road outside the country’s capital Oslo, the environmentally-friendly lights which use less electricity due to their design, are estimated to save about 2,100 kilowatt hours every week.
It might not be much but that’s enough energy to power a refrigerator working day and night for about 260 days!
Street lights are underrated in energy conservation. However, as this example shows, 8 kilometres of intelligent street lights can make quite a difference in just one week.
Check out the street lights in action in this video.