Skip to main content

From sunlight to street light

A zero-emission LED street light which its Danish developer, Scotia, claims eliminates electricity costs and feed energy back into the grid has been installed in a car park in Copenhagen for seven years and, says have consistently produced five per cent above their initially predicted yield, with no fall-off. Commissioned by the Danish Government and the United Nations as examples of future zero-emission street lighting for the COP 15 Conference on Climate Change which was held there in December 2009,
March 23, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
A zero-emission LED street light which its Danish developer, Scotia, claims eliminates electricity costs and feed energy back into the grid has been installed in a car park in Copenhagen for seven years and, says have consistently produced  five per cent above their initially predicted yield, with no fall-off.

Commissioned by the Danish Government and the United Nations as examples of future zero-emission street lighting for the COP 15 Conference on Climate Change which was held there in December 2009, the lights have been in continuous operation since then with minimal maintenance and no cleaning.

Each of the Scotia masts has been generating 240kwh per year, which the company says means that this small installation of just seven masts has already saved nearly seven tons of CO2 in its short lifetime.

Developed by British lighting expert Steven Scott for his Danish lighting company Scotia, the Monopole converts sunlight to street light by using photovoltaic (PV) panels attached to the four sides of a post. The energy can then be stored in a battery and used at night.

Scotia believes that the increasing cost of running streetlights which is causing some councils in the UK to dim or switch off street lights, could be cut by using the Monopole in addition to reducing to CO2 emissions. It claims that if a local authority with 33,000 traditional street lights converted them all to Monopoles, which can last for 25 years, the maintenance cost would be reduced by around a quarter each year, whilst also making a profit for the council.

Monopole can also run off-grid and be connected with other Monopoles to provide a micro-power grid for developed and developing countries. Earlier versions of the streetlights have also been installed in Nigeria, UAE and Saudi Arabia and can even be powered throughout the year using just ambient light.

Related Content

  • February 2, 2012
    Green requirements of traffic video systems
    Traficon's Head of Product and Application Management Robin Collaert offers up a discussion of the likely future green requirements of traffic video systems. At the most basic levels, ITS has the potential to significantly reduce the amounts of time which vehicles spend waiting at intersections, and less time spent waiting means less in the way of vehicular emissions. All of that will hardly come as news to most laypeople, let alone transport professionals. However, the reality is that even today too many r
  • March 22, 2012
    Completely new concept for inflating airbags
    Autoliv has announced it has developed a completely new concept for inflating airbags that is more environmentally friendly and more cost efficient than traditional inflator technologies. In addition, it reduces the inflator’s weight by 20 per cent compared to most inflators for the intended application.
  • October 9, 2015
    Siemens completes installation of new LED streetlights for US town
    Siemens has recently completed installation of more than 550 LED streetlights and floodlights in the Town of Hamilton, Massachusetts, on behalf of Metropolitan Area Planning Council, (MAPC). The full project installation is expected to result in at least US$25,000 in annual energy and maintenance savings for the town, reduce energy usage by 60 per cent compared to existing streetlights, and provide citizens with clearer lighting conditions to improve visibility and safety. The project is also expected t
  • October 9, 2019
    Gulf Traffic Q&A: Middle East in Focus
    Gulf Traffic takes place on 9-11 December in Dubai – the centre of business in the Middle East and North Africa. ITS International is the official media partner of Gulf Traffic, and this year the event will highlight the latest technologies and systems from global suppliers. Rahul Rawat, exhibition director, explains how the international industry can benefit from the opportunities that the region provides.