home » Landscape design » Autonomous solar lighting on the street, in the yard, in the country

Autonomous solar lighting on the street, in the yard, in the country

Recently, more and more people have to think about saving energy. Prices for light and gas are constantly growing, so you have to think about using free energy sources. For owners of private houses and summer cottages, it will be a good idea to save street lighting on solar panels.

The content of the article

1 Pros and cons
- 1.1 Advantages
- 1.2 disadvantages
2 Solar powered lamp device
3 The choice of solar street lighting fixtures
4 Autonomous solar street lighting
5 Solar-powered street lighting: photo ideas

Pros and cons

Yard lighting device, garden, local area requires high costs - you need not only to install lamps, but also to lay the cable. More reliable underground cable laying, and this is a large amount of earthwork, plus substantial costs for the cable, since it must be in a protective sheath, or better - in armor. But that's not all - in the process of operation you have to pay substantial electricity bills - lighting works every day, for 6-8 hours. Solar-powered street lighting can partially solve the problem.

Such lighting can be done using ordinary lamps and a cable stretched between them or by installing solar-powered lamps

Advantages

Why partially? Because the most "critical" areas (gates, parking, entrance doors) will have to be illuminated permanently - this is more reliable. But on the rest of the area you can put solar-powered lamps. They have a number of advantages.

Solar-powered luminaires are usually self-contained and do not need to be connected anywhere. They are installed / hung in the right places, this completes the installation, they are ready to go.
They turn on / off themselves, from the built-in sensors.
Ease of installation and safety are two big advantages
They require minimal maintenance - periodically it is necessary to wipe the photocells and lamp cover from dust and dirt.
They have a long service life - from 10 years or more (with proper quality).
They do not harm the environment and are absolutely safe, as they operate from low voltage, which is not dangerous to humans.
If solar-powered street lighting is made in the country, its conservation for the winter and installation takes very little time. You just need to collect the lamps before leaving and arrange them upon arrival.

disadvantages

As you can see, there are many advantages, the main of which is energy saving and very simple installation / dismantling. But there are also disadvantages:

Solar-powered garden and street lights are usually not very bright. You won't be able to use them as security lighting. Rather, there are powerful models that are even used to illuminate highways, but their cost is completely inhumane, which is why their use in private farmsteads is very limited.
Solar-powered street lighting is usually not very bright
The number of hours of operation at night depends on the weather: in cloudy rainy weather, the lamps “store” too little energy. Sometimes it is only enough for a few hours, and not for the whole night.
Reliable solar-powered luminaires are expensive, but they work more reliably and last longer.
Solar panels have a limited operating temperature range. They do not tolerate severe frosts and extreme heat. Therefore, they can be used optimally in areas with a temperate climate.

As you can see, the option is not ideal, but it really helps to save on electricity, because regular lighting of critical areas is far from half the cost of general lighting of the yard and garden.

Solar powered lamp device

Solar-powered street lamps can have different shapes, appearance, installation method, but they all consist of a certain set of elements:

Solar panel or battery. A device that converts solar energy into electrical energy. It can be located on different parts of the lamp, but facing upwards - in order to better capture the sun's rays.
Battery. Electric energy accumulates in it during daylight hours.
Solar powered lamp device
Lighting block. This is usually a body, an LED lamp and a shade.
A controller that turns on / off the power supply to the lighting unit.
Mount / hanging bracket.

As you understand, the principle of operation is as follows: during daylight hours, the sun's rays are captured by the solar panel, where they are converted into electrical energy and transferred to the battery. At dusk (illumination 20 Lx), the controller turns on the power supply, the LED lamp lights up. In the morning at dawn (with an illumination of 10 Lx), the lighting is turned off.

The choice of solar street lighting fixtures

The retail chain has LED street lamps with a very wide range of prices - from one hundred rubles to tens of thousands. Sometimes there are models that look almost the same, but are very different in price. How to understand this and how to choose solar-powered street lighting fixtures? It's simple - you need to look at the technical specifications. They make all the difference.

Power

When arranging lighting, it is necessary to take into account how much light the lamp can give. The number of lamps and the distance at which they must be installed from each other depend on this. The technical specifications usually indicate the power in watts, and in the case of LED lamps, it says little.

An example of the technical characteristics of a solar-powered street light

To understand the level of illumination, it can be compared with an analogue of an ordinary incandescent lamp - their power is more or less clear to us, and you can also translate this indicator into Lums (Lm) - units of measurement of illumination. So you can really estimate how effective this particular lamp will be.

Correspondence table of LED power and illumination

As you understand, models with a power of 1 W do not give so much light - about like a 20 W incandescent lamp, therefore they can be used only for highlighting or marking a site - marking paths, illuminating arbors, etc.

Protection class and housing material

In order for solar-powered street lighting to work for a long time and reliably, it is necessary that the body and the light unit (plafond) be protected from dust and moisture. It is desirable that the protection class is not lower than IP44 (more numbers are good, less is bad).

Decoding numbers in protection class

It is also worth paying attention to the material from which the lamps are made. Usually it is a special high-impact plastic or metal. If the "metal" is different from stainless steel or aluminum, it is better to give preference to plastics. They definitely do not rust and retain their good appearance for a long time.

Type and method of installation

According to the method of installation, LED street lamps are divided into several groups:

Installation in the ground. This is a group of lamps with legs of different heights - from 20-30 cm to a meter and more. Their installation is extremely simple - they just stick into the ground in the right place.
The most extensive group - lamps are simply stuck into the ground
Lamps-pillars. As a rule, these are taller models with a leg height of 1.5 meters and above. They can also be installed on the ground, but require more serious installation measures - they have a greater height and weight. You will have to make a hole, insert a pillar into it, fill it with soil and compact it.There are models for installation on hard surfaces - tiles, asphalt, etc.
Solar lights on tall poles
Solar powered wall lights. There are different styles - from the classic "lamp" design, to models in a modern style. Can be mounted on a wall, fence, fence posts.
Wall options look decorative
Suspended. There are also many options - there are models that can be attached to the ceiling, beam, etc., and there are models that can be hung on branches.
For different purposes and conditions
Built into the ground, paths, stairs. Very practical models that allow you to illuminate even stairs, and they do not illuminate from above, as usual, but at the level of the steps. An interesting and practical solution - with this option, the light does not blind the eyes, and the illumination remains good.
Staircase lighting - convenient, economical and beautiful
Decorative. Made in the form of various figures. In the daytime they look like a normal decor, at night they still emit additional light. There is no installation in this case - they just put the lamp in the place intended for it.
Solar panels are also built into decorative figures.

The selection of solar street lights for street lighting is really great. The assortment is large in style, size, price, so you can choose.

Autonomous solar street lighting

With a lot of advantages, street lighting with the help of separate solar-powered lamps has a significant drawback: the energy supply in the batteries is scanty. After a cloudy day, it only lasts a few hours. On a clear sunny day, the "extra" energy is lost, since the capacity of the battery is limited and it is not able to accept more. The problem can be solved by installing a powerful solar battery, connecting a battery and lamps to it. In this case, you can use any LED lamps that can operate from 12V.

Diagram of a device for autonomous street lighting from solar panels

The advantage of this solution is that there is a certain amount of energy (depending on the battery capacity), which guarantees operation even after a cloudy day. Disadvantages are the high price and the need to lay cables, since everything needs to be combined into a single system.

Solar-powered street lighting: photo ideas

This section contains ideas of site illumination that are interesting in our opinion and solar-powered lamps.

Track illumination

There are lamps with external solar panels. The light module itself can be placed in the shade or in the house, and the battery can be exposed in a sunny place.