LED Lights and Solar Lighting Information

Solar Powered LED Lighting

Installing commercial solar LED lights can be an effective way to ensure safety while eliminating the need for and high cost of utility service and ongoing monthly electricity bills. There are many advantages of solar Lighting LED, and we will cover many of the benefits of solar energy for lights below.

Best Solar Lights that Stay on All Night

When you decide on a solar light, you want reliability. The best solar lights stay on all night without dimming. You also want a solar-led light that will work all night, even in the winter and extremely cold conditions, if you live in a northern climate. In addition, LED lights eliminate the cost of bulb replacement from traditional Lighting, increasing the fixture life cycle and reducing bulb installation costs. It may not sound like much, but it can be significant over a few bulb changes.

Solar Lighting customers wonder what determines the brightness of a bulb or an LED light fixture. Previously, light fixture brightness was associated with watts. However, a watt is a unit of energy consumption, and brightness cannot be measured in watts. Watts are not the brightness of a light fixture; only power consumption. The brightness of a solar LED light is measured in lumens. The more lumen output of a solar light fixture, the brighter the light output.

We can explain light fixture brightness and lumens brightness in more detail. LED lights are rated in lumens per watt. If a light fixture uses low-quality LED chips like 50 lumens per watt and you have 100 watts of power, the fixture brightness will be 5000 lumens. If the LED chip is 100 lumens per watt and you have 100 watts of power, the LED fixture brightness will be 10,000 lumens. The same power can provide double the light output if you have a high-quality LED chip in the light fixture.

The most cost-effective long-term alternative is solar LED lighting. Solar Lighting gets its power from the sun, instead of the power company, reducing your total energy bills. LED lights burn brighter and last up to 10 years longer, providing increased reliability and low maintenance costs.

How to Clean Solar Lights

The only maintenance you must perform on a solar light is learning how to clean the solar lights. Cleaning solar lights panel is easy and can be done with a bucket of water, dawn soap, and a rag or squeegee. This will allow your solar lights to perform optimally and possibly charge the lights on cloudy days.

Solar Lighting International has solar LED lighting solutions for most situations. If you are looking to light city streets, a major highway, parking lots, or other large areas, Solar Lighting International’s LED Lighting Systems are a reliable and effective choice we have a solution. SLI’s systems are designed for commercial highway and street lighting and are the best commercial solar LED light. We also offer street lights and parking lot lights for your other needs and situations. We will work with you to create a system suited to your situation and budget.

 

What must I consider before selecting the best solar light for my project?

1 Runtime – Do I need the solar light to operate all night or just until midnight and then before people arrive in the morning? There is a direct cost associated with light runtime. The longer the light operates, the more it may cost for extra batteries and solar panels. Our Stealth II commercial solar light product line has a fixture that can operate all night without dimming and a solar LED light that can run all night in the winter. You may think you receive a lot of sunlight in the winter, but every location is different and receives about half the solar-charging sun hours in the winter compared to the same location in the summer. Solar powered lights must be selected based on the winter solar sun hours in the installation location. Our engineer can help select the correct model for your area and application.

2 Backup – Do you need 5-7 days of solar battery backup? Typically, three days of dusk to dawn battery backup is plenty of reliable solar lighting project. A 5 to 7-day battery backup increases the price significantly while only adding two days of power that may be used once or twice a year. If the sun is out 80% of the time, you probably don’t need to spend the extra money. Solar Parking lot lights can also charge a little on cloudy days.

3 Appropriate amount of light? You may not know it, but many cities have lighting requirements to meet illumination standards and codes for safety. Knowing how much light, without professional help, can be tricky. SLI has extensive experience in lighting codes and lighting design requirements. We use IES (Illumination Engineering Society) guidelines for all our applications. Guideline RP-33-99 Lighting for Exterior Environments is the standard SLI uses to determine which parking lot light suits your application. We will select a light and light pole combination to meet your county lighting requirements and your budget.

The RP-8 Street light design guide is the industry standard for street lighting recommendations to meet the IES guideline. SLI will use RP-8 to determine your roadway lighting requirements and can provide you with a site lighting plan or lighting photometric to submit to your local authorities for approval. A worry-free process lies ahead, and one of our lighting engineers are eager to assist you.

4 Height of pole and type of pole – We offer a variety of light poles to meet your solar lighting project requirement. We provide steel light poles, fiberglass light poles, aluminum streetlight poles, straight, square, round steel, and many other options, including lighting poles for high-wind environments. We are here to help you find the best turnkey solar light pole solution for your budget.

5 Color Temperature – Color temperature for LEDs can range from 1500 kelvin, an orange look (low-pressure sodium), 3000 Kelvin (high-pressure sodium) warm white, to 4000-kelvin white metal halide, to 5000 kelvin and, 6000+ kelvin color where the light starts to take on a light blue hue. The image below will help you understand the color temperature range.

These are a few things to consider before you select what type of solar powered led lighting system is right for your application.