Sustainable Street Lighting

“Taking the environmental consequences of lighting up the night into account, we cannot help but acknowledge the amount of energy needed to run the millions upon millions of street lights around the world.” That’s Nick Blitterswyk, CEO of Urban Green Energy (UGE; urbangreenenergy.com). To alleviate this problem, UGE, best known for its vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWT), combined its wind energy solution with solar technology to develop “Sanya,” a sustainable LED street light 100% powered by the wind and sun, not some far-flung coal-burning energy plant. Its base design features UGE’s 600-W VAWT and 150-W of solar panels; the unit’s lead-acid battery (that’s the recommended type) allows the unit to store up to five day’s worth of combined wind and solar energy. What’s more, Sanya is easy to install and cost competitive compared to conventional street lamps.