Design and development of energy-free solar street LED light system

Today, all count words are about how to enhance the electrical grid reliability during the peak instant. The direct solution for the grid is to cut off some loads to keep its stability. One of these loads is the street lighting especially during the summer period. This paper proposes an energy-free system for street lighting as there is no power demand from the grid. A standalone solar street LED light system is proposed. The proposed system consists of a PV panel, storage system, LED lamp, power conditioning system (PCS) and the controller which can manage the power direction and system operation. Using LED in lighting applications has many advantages compared to other lamp. It is very efficient (very high efficiency lighting source) lamps and cost effective (the life time is very long compare to other lamps). In additions to, it needs low dc voltage source to be operated. The storage system will be charged during the day time using the available sunlight. On the other hand, during the night time the controller will give a signal to the system to connect the LED lamp to be ready for use. Since the LED needs a low dc voltage to be operated, a simple dc-dc converter will be enough for this system resulting in decreasing the cost of the overall system. Moreover, a low cost microcontroller is proposed to handle the operation of the whole system. Applying this idea in the Egyptian streets enables the reduction of more than 50 % of the total required energy by HID lamps that enable the use for small PV system. By this proposed system, streets can be illuminated with lower power lamps, no operating costs, no CO₂ emissions, grid energy-free and environmentally friendly. Moreover, the proposed solution can solve the Egyptian peak point crisis of load demand.