LED on the street

Proposal for case study

LED for street lighting

The Agriculture Museum has a new LED street light with a stand-alone solar power station for lighting the corner of a remote intersection in Flagler County, Florida. According to local authority, the expense of installing street lights by the local utility made the selection of a self-sustaining station and natural choice.

Further, it is the focus of this discussion as to what are the current barriers that prevent the marketplace from promoting solutions like this so that the advantage bulk purchasing power and economies of scale determine alternative energy penetration into the market share.

According to a local expert, the insurance industry limits the utility company as to what devices are suitable in the application of street lighting. It’s the quality and integrity of the light radiation or emission that determines the viability of a product for public safety and use. Simply put, the current LED beam patterns illuminating an area are not considered adequate as defined by regulatory mandate.

Is it really that critical to public safety? Or is it a matter of technology and information advancing quicker than public policy.

According to another embedded stakeholder “There is a chance that the current legislation and insurance guidelines do not touch on these emerging technologies and make it a barrier for this kind of enterprise. It’s a matter of public policy lagging the pace of technology.”

So without catalysis this transition has stalled? What does it take to change public policy so that this venture is suitable? If you take the federal or state regulatory element from this equation, its obvious LED lighting is a no-nonsense solution to energy conservation.

I spoke with an associate of a popular surf shop in on a recent trip to Florida Solar Energy Center in world famous Cocoa Beach. She told me their outfit has retrofitted their operations outside lighting with LED.

The quest at this point is to:

1.       Identify the legislative constraint or code that may be the root of this barrier.

a.       Maybe speak with someone in South Daytona about their new acquisition of their FPL region and see what they know about this prospect.

b.      Ask key members about this topic.

2.       Better understand what the smart grid is and whether secondary passive power generation features are planned for and being implemented during repair or replacement in the future.