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Hybrid Wind and Solar Powered Streetlamps That Run on Their Own

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You’re putting solar panels on your roof? Why not on the streetlamps? After all, they’re one of the biggest consumers off any city’s electric bill. Ok, so we’ll do that then! Not so fast: here comes the eternal problem of solar panels – where do you get the electricity when there’s no light?

With Holonic Streetlamp, that’s not an issue anymore. The University of Seville helped put up a design  that includes two top-mounted solar panels and a vertical-axis wind turbine, both powering the lamp during cloudy days or grid outages. Don’t worry – an 87 mph wind is not enough to bring down the little turbine! The base of the lamp post holds two 12-volt lead gel or lithium-ion batteries (n.r. probably prone to theft) to store the energy collected during the day.

And when the right time comes (a photocell “alarm” which signals the night), the LED bulbs start shedding light according to the schedule and depending on the brightness level they were adjusted to. Of course, that doesn’t mean these streetlamps can’t be connected to the grid, which will probably happen, to start with.

The most important thing is that they can run independently, just by a remote monitorization and operation from a centralized management system. In that rhythm, they last up to 50,000 hours at temperatures touching  even 104°F. When they won’t be able to be used anymore, they just get recycled…or at least 95% of them.

We just hope the university will be able to find buyers for its prototype, because this really sounds like a good, feasible project!

[via Treehugger]

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1 COMMENT

  1. There is a Brazilian company called Gram-Eollic that already produces such hybrid wind and solar streetlamps.

    Not just a “prototype”, they can deliver it to anyone interested in buying it.

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