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Wind and Solar-Powered Street Lighting Skips the Grid

Written by Megan Treacy on 22/05/09

French company Windela has created a street lighting system that works without any connection to the grid. The Windelux is powered by both a small vertical wind turbine and a solar PV panel.

The lamp is comprised of 84 LEDs and automatically switches on when a photosensitive cell detects that it's dark. A built-in control system stops the wind generator if the wind speed is too high and also allows the pole to act as a Wi-Fi relay.

Inside the pole is the battery that makes all this possible. A rechargable LiFePo battery stores the energy generated by the solar PV panel and wind generator and supplies four nights worth of light before needing to be recharged.

Street lighting accounts for a huge percentage of most cities energy use and costs. The Windelux seems to be an ideal solution for providing both street lighting and distributing Wi-Fi, without ever touching the grid. Currently, units have only been installed in France and Algeria, but it'd be great to see the technology make it's way across the Atlantic.

via Cleantechnica

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FFS (units)
written by Jeff, May 22, 2009
Not to be too much of a douche... but "100-200 watts per day"??? What the hell does that mean exactly?

I'd expect this from an AP article, but eco-"geeks" are supposed to understand units of energy/power.
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written by John Rowell, May 23, 2009
Maybe Megan meant to say 100-200 watt-hours. (Right, Megan?) Anyway, I do like the design of this light a lot - small and self-contained, powered by both wind and solar, and serving multiple functions.
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written by doug, May 23, 2009
How much power does the lamp use? Hopefully less than 20 Watts, assuming the post generates 200 Watt hours and the lamp needs to be on for 10 hours per day. That's not counting the power the wifi needs. (Perhaps Megan meant "100-200 Watts during the day")

Anyhow, I'm not so sure about this idea. I think it certainly would be great for a remote area. But in cities which already have a power infrastructure, I'm not sure it makes much sense. I'd think you'd be better off replacing the lamps in existing street lights with LED's, then using whatever renewable energy generation you have available. Solar, for example, might be more efficiently (in terms of power and material cost) generated on roof tops or at solar farms than on these solar trees. Also, how much do the batteries cost? How long will they last? Will the diurnal and seasonal temperature fluctuations be a problem. I'd think it would just be cheaper and more environmentally friendly to use the grid as your "battery".
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Wind and Solar-Powered
written by Glenn, May 23, 2009
This is a bright idea! Not sure if the wattages are correct, but conceptually, LEDs use very little electricity and co-housing light and wifi in the same infrastructure just makes sense. Can't wait for the beta version, mass production and an economy of scale.
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written by Tetsubo, May 24, 2009
The first thing I thought of was theft. Such a self-contained unit would be easily removed and used elsewhere. Something that you don't have to worry about with a conventional streetlight. Don't get me wrong, this is a great idea. But how do you keep them from being stolen?
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written by Jim, May 27, 2009
Re: Tetsubo ... The same reasons you can't steal an existing streetlight... well, i guess you could if you REALLY wanted to, but why?
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written by andrew, May 29, 2009
this is how we all should all live
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Would that we could see home units
written by Rich, May 29, 2009
One always wonders if these companies are after the big buck bang for eco-friendly or if perchance they are really trying to get enough of these units made so that homes could also utilize these.

From the tone of the article I get the feeling these are directed at only cities. My question is why?
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written by Fred, July 27, 2009
This one pole has so many functions cool
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decorate your home
written by aaron, September 11, 2009
We can use these solar lights for decoration as these need a charge once every four days.these save the energy.

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