SRESLi: SMART RENEWABLE ENERGY STREET LIGHTING SYSTEM

Abstract

Conventional street lighting systems do not allow controlling the light intensity depending on the traffic of pedestrians or vehicles, only operate in two automatic modes (on/off) according to the availability of daylight and consume enormous amounts of electric energy. In this article, we describe the design, development and implementation of a new intelligent street lighting system that is based on LED technology, an energy-efficient embedded wireless control device (hardware) designed from scratch, and photovoltaic solar energy. The embedded device includes specialized firmware and an energy-efficient wireless communication protocol, that allows to form a network of infrared sensors to detect pedestrians and vehicles, so as to control and dim the LED luminaires. We implemented a pilot system in a back road of the campus of Universidad Privada Boliviana, in the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia, where energy consumption measurements confirm energy savings of 72.8% thanks to the developed intelligent control system.