LED street lighting can be applied in various conditions and that is why the application is replacing traditional lighting fixtures rapidly. In the extreme weather conditions of Ningxia, a central province close to Mongolia, OSRAM Opto Semiconductors’ OSLON SSL LEDs have been installed in solar powered street lamps. These LED lamps withstand the challenging near desert climate and provide stable performance and uniform illumination, fulfilling the requirements set out by the city and its planners.

The 174 new street lamps line the 2.6km of Da Xue Road in Shizhuishan City of Ningxia Province. As the city is close to the Gobi Desert with an average of 28 days of fine weather per month and great temperature difference between day and night, the local government has decided to use solar energy to power these new street lamps.

“By using solar energy alone, the street lamps need to be of very low power consumption. With OSRAM’s OSLON SSL LED as light source, our solar powered street lamps are estimated to save more than RMB 300,000 per year in energy cost alone and reduce carbon dioxide emission by more than 53 tons annually,” said Mr Xin-jun DANG, Managing Director of GBT Technologies (Shenzhen) Limited, the company which installed the street lamps. “On the other hand, we are pleased to work with OSRAM who provides an excellent application support to us. As the weather conditions are rather extreme, OSRAM’s LED simulation reports also help us make improvements to the designs before the fixtures are installed.”

These 1 W LEDs, measuring only 3mm x 3mm, deliver outstanding efficiency at all currents. Combined with the excellent thermal management and stable quality of these LEDs, the street lamps can perform very well even when the temperature goes down to -20°C.

“Other than 80° beam angle LED used in this Ningxia streetlighting project, we also have 150° LED. Both types of LED radiate light over a specified angle and the emission can be easily redirected via equipping with lens or reflector based on different design requirement from lighting fixtures,” said Kai-chong Cheng, Marketing Director of OSRAM Opto Semiconductors Asia Ltd.

To further save energy and to provide comfortable illumination to the road, light sensors are installed to control the luminance. On a normal day, the lamps will work in full light for five hours and will be turned down to half light (half power) until dawn. On other occasions when light conditions vary, the luminance can be adjusted accordingly. As a result, each lamp will consume only 80W, which is only 1/5 of a high pressure sodium (HPS) lamp.
 
GBT’s solar powered streetlamp in Ningxia enabled by OSRAM Opto Semiconductors’ low power consumption OSLON SSL LED