Analysis of the Viability of Street Light Programming Using Commutation Cycles in the Power Line

Abstract

Nowadays, control systems for lighting installations are used, among other functionality, to improve energy efficiency and to set different lighting outputs of the luminaires according to punctual requirements. This allows increasing energy efficiency by adapting the installation to environmental needs. Current control systems are mainly oriented to point-2-point architectures, which in most cases, are complex and expensive. As an alternative, we present the viability analysis of a sustainable control architecture for lighting installations to improve those drawbacks. This control system uses a communication technique based on controlled power-on/off sequences in the power line of the luminaires to configure different dimming profile schedules. An implementation for LED equipment with the design of an electronic CPU based on a microcontroller is described along with a study of its configuration capability. In addition, we present the set of results obtained using this system in a real outdoor public lighting installation. Furthermore, an economic amortization study of power line communication (PLC) or radio frequency (RF) control architectures versus the results of this proposal are detailed. The analysis presents the proposal as a simple but more robust and sustainable solution compared to current point-2-point systems used with streetlights: The return on investment (ROI) period is reduced allowing all the basic functionality expected—in—field output light dimming profiles selection.