How Are Solar Street Lights Effective On Cloudy Days?
People often ask how can something solar-powered work if the sun isn’t out. Rest assured that rain, hail, or shine, your council’s solar street lights will still function. They will collect less energy when it’s cloudy than when it’s sunny. That doesn’t mean they won’t collect any energy at all. So long as you can still see, there is light around. Your council’s solar street lights will be able to make use of that light.
In fact, clouds actually reflect light. They do reduce how much direct sunlight hits solar panels, but direct sunlight isn’t everything. Diffuse light energy increases when clouds reflect light. Diffuse light energy is only slightly less useful to solar panels than direct sunlight.
How Can Rain Be Good For Solar Street Lights?
Even rain can be a good thing for your council’s solar street lights. Your solar battery is not going to be building up to the peak of your power efficiency when it’s pouring outside. Your panels will get a free wash, though. ‘Bad’ weather will rinse away any debris, dust, or detritus that’s built up on your panels. This means that they’ll be able to collect sunlight with even greater efficiency. Next time the sun peeks out from behind the clouds, you can thank the rain for any extra kilowatts you’ve gained.
The above is even more true if you have hydrophobic solar panels. Hydrophobic solar panels cause water to slide right off. When the water slides off, it’ll take any debris and dirt with it. Hydrophobic panels can prevent spots, too. It’s a bit like how a rinse-aid in your dishwasher does the same thing.
Leadsun solar street lights feature self-cleaning glass, positioned to optimise the way that the rain cleans them. This reduces the need for ongoing maintenance.
How Solar Street Lights Store Energy For Cloudy Days
Imagine your council has got some solar street lights and there’s some cloudy weather coming up. How are you going to make sure you’ve got enough power when it comes? Your solar system will handle this the same way as you do with your finances. That is, you do some saving for a rainy day.
Having some battery energy in reserve means your lights will shine even when it’s stormy. For that to work, you’re going to need to save more energy than you expend. With solar street lights, that means collecting more energy during the day than they use at night. That way the system will have enough energy to power the lights, as well as a surplus to fill your battery. The ideal result will be a solar street light system that stays bright all year round.
Leadsun solar street lights can offer this kind of reliability thanks to our Lithium LiFePO4 battery. With their innovative patent double battery management system, they have excellent charging efficiency. Leadsun patented battery management systems provides have twice the lifespan of other solar lighting batteries.
When designing a system, Leadsun sizes the solar panels and batteries for the exact location where the lights will be installed using data from the Bureau of Meteorology to ensure that your lights have 3 to 4 nights of battery autonomy. That means that even if there was no sun at all the lights will have enough power for 3 to 4 nights. So with the energy generation even on cloudy days you can be confident that your lights will keep shining night after night.
How Can You Make Maintaining Solar Street Lights Easy?
You may worry that a run of bad weather will cause your council’s solar street lights to expend their battery supply. You needn’t worry about that, because our battery management system is designed to prevent this very thing. Leadsun doesn’t want your council’s solar street light system running out of power in a couple of days. We want to make sure you’re creating more energy than you use each day, so your reserves stay topped up.
We’re a top solar street light manufacturer. That means we have a wide range of methods designed to determine the perfect size for your system.
What’s more, Leadsun solar street lights are SMART. With our EDGE wireless control and monitoring service, you can ensure that your solar street lights are functioning exactly as you need them to, any time, any place.
What Makes Our Solar Street Lights Different?
Lots of consumer solar street lights don’t put a lot of effort in. They work on a single-tier, standardised basis, with no room for variation. The solar panels and batteries that come with these street lights tend to be smaller than commercial lighting systems.
Solar street lights like this change their output depending on how much power they can store. Unless you live on the equator, chances are these lights are going to be dimmer than expected. In financial terms, these lights have minimal savings, minimal income, and minimal spending money. That is low battery storage, low energy generation, and low light at night.
Solar street lights like the ones from Leadsun can power the light levels they promise – rain, hail, or shine. We have advanced, innovative solar technology that won’t leave you in the dark. With our self-cleaning glass, patented double Lithium LiFePO4 batteries, and EDGE wireless control and monitoring service, you can rest assured that your council’s lights will keep shining when you need them most.
Get in touch with a Leadsun representative to discuss your options.
