Why LED solar street lights replace ordinary street lights

Some people say that if LED street lights are not powered by solar energy, then it has no value in continued use; others say that solar power will only make the production cost of LED street lights more expensive, which makes it difficult for LED street lights to be promoted and used in the real society; Some people say that LED street lights should use a combination of solar power supply and AC power supply... There are different opinions. Let's take a look at why solar LED street lights replace AC LED street lights?

Currently, most of the LED street lights still use AC power supply. On the one hand, the technology of AC circuit lights is very mature, on the other hand, the initial investment of solar energy is high, thus ignoring other advantages of solar power supply.

LED street lamps are more energy-efficient than high-pressure sodium lamps, and people have long known it. However, some quantitative concepts may still be lacking. It is now recognized that a 100-watt LED street lamp can replace a 250-watt high-pressure sodium lamp, so it can be simply considered that each LED street lamp can save 150 watts of electricity.

However, if it is changed to solar power, then even this 100W of electricity can be saved, that is to say, each street lamp can save 250 watts of electricity. It is estimated that the total number of existing street lights in China is about 100 million, and it is growing at a rate of 20% every year. If all the street lights in the country are replaced by solar street lights, the electricity saved will exceed the annual power generation of a Three Gorges Hydropower Station . This is an extremely alarming number.

Not only that, solar energy is a clean and renewable energy source, which not only saves electricity, but also reduces carbon dioxide emissions. Each 250-watt high-pressure sodium lamp will produce 1,290 kilograms of carbon dioxide within a year, so after all 60 million street lamps are converted to solar street lamps, 77.4 million tons of carbon dioxide will be reduced. After changing to LED solar street lights, it not only saves electricity bills, but also saves the cost of carbon dioxide reduction. The reduction cost per ton of carbon dioxide is US$345-404. Reducing 77.4 million tons of carbon dioxide is equivalent to saving US$31 billion in carbon dioxide reduction costs.

The previous figures are just a comparison between LED street lights and high-pressure sodium lights. For the same 100W LED street light, the energy saving comparison between using AC and using solar energy can be obtained by dividing the above data by 2.5. In other words, 60 million 100-watt LED street lights, if all powered by solar energy, can save 26.28 billion kWh of electricity compared to when all AC power is used, and the cost of carbon dioxide emission reduction is 12.4 billion US dollars.