LED Street Lights to Get Test Run in New Jersey
Four New Jersey communities will be part of a pilot replacing cobra headlamps on utility poles with LEDs.
Camden, Elizabeth, Trenton and Verona are the four locales where LED street lamps will be tried.
PSE&G partnered with the New Jersey cities and Essex County in a test installation of new LEDs in the streetlights of certain city and county roadways.
Twenty-four LED street lamps are being installed without charge to the participating cities or counties.
PSE&G will be performing multiple tests during the next six to 12 months to determine reliability, light output, light quality, and energy consumption.
The municipalities are being asked to monitor their experience with the new type of lighting from a pedestrian perspective and to provide feedback to PSE&G regarding their satisfaction with the quality of the light.
LED technologies in street lighting are expected to reduce energy consumption by up to 70% while providing an equal or better illumination. In addition, they have a potential life expectancy of three to four times that of the current high intensity discharge (HID) sources like high-pressure sodium and metal halide.
LEDs are constructed by assembling multiple diodes connected together to form an array and then assembling multiple arrays to complete the fixture. LEDs are considered green alternatives because of their extremely low hazardous materials content and the fact that reducing energy consumption significantly will reduce the need for electric generation that produces carbon dioxide into the environment.
Today’s installations are the company’s first look into this technology and will permit a real world test of manufacturer and industry claims on energy savings, visual effect and reliability.
Following review and analysis of the program, PSE&G will then determine where and how this technology can be deployed in its street lighting and area lighting systems.
The New Jersey cities follow Ann Arbor, Michigan, Raleigh, North Carolina and Toronto, Ontario in making a commitment to LED technology.
