20 eco friendly streetlights that show us the green way

The rise in the demand for energy and the decline in its supply have made product manufacturers and designers come up with sustainable alternatives that help save energy or run on renewable sources of energy. The street lighting industry has also witnessed the change with many manufacturers unveiling next-gen solar-powered street lights and designers coming up with even better lighting solutions for the future. Boosting this green trend, here are 20 sustainable street lighting systems that can make streets green and safe.

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• Solar Powered Invisible Streetlight

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Designed by Johgoh Lee, the Invisible Streetlight is a solar powered street light that imitates leaves and can be hidden among natural plants on the sides of streets. Comprising double injection of silicon, aluminum and a photo capacitor, these sustainable lights keep glowing all night long.

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• Prisma Street Light

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The Prisma Street Light by designer Agustin Otegui projects three light beams in different directions, and 360 degrees of colored light with varying intensities can be radiated from the LED sphere. Solar panels on the sides charge the lights during the day and provide light at night, the electromagnetic glass shifts from transparent to reflective and the light can be redirected when one of the sides is not needed, resulting in adequate use of power supply.

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• Solar Trees

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Conceptualized by designers over at Vinaccia Integral Design, the Solar Tree is an innovative street lighting system that gets powered by renewable solar energy. The tree-shaped structures have six branches, each of which is equipped with monocrystalline silicon solar cells that generate up to 100W of clean electrical power. The stored energy is supplied to a 48W LED lamp that has brightness equaling an ordinary 400W halogen lamp.

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• Solar-powered Gotham Lamp

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3XN designed sustainable LED luminaires for Bella Center in Copenhagen. Dubbed Gotham, the street lamps are powered by solar energy which is harvested by PV modules. The modules generate more energy than what is required by the lamps.

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• LED Lantern Solar Light

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Designed by Vinaccia Integral Design, the LED Lantern Solar Light helps illuminate streets with renewable energy. The lights are to be crafted in aluminum with monocrystalline silicon solar panels that can generate up to 100W of green power. The energy is stored in batteries, which after dark is released to fuel LED headlamps which consume up to 48W of power for the same amount of illuminating power as a 500W halogen lamp.

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• Luceplan Sky

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The Luceplan Sky has been designed by Alfredo Häberli rely on the energy of the sun to illuminate the streets after dark. The PV panels resting on top of the lights charge batteries during daytime which as night falls power up the LEDs to release intense and prolonged lighting in the area.

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• Ross Lovegrove's Solar Tree

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British designer Ross Lovegrove designed the Solar Tree, an innovative street lighting system that relies on renewable energy. The idea was to bring art and light to the Ringtrasse and Lovegrove came up with the concept of solar tree, made with the modern technology of pipe bending.

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• Embryo

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The Embryo Street Lighting concept by designer Harsha Vardhan looks completely practical and effective. Inspired by a living sprout, the Embryo not only generates electricity for illumination but for other uses as well. The flexible photovoltaic cell on the top of the hood-like roof and an included wind turbine harnesses renewable energy that will not only supply power to the lamp itself, but the remaining energy can be stored in a battery contained at the bottom and used for other purposes.

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• Sharp’s Solar Powered LED Street Light

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Sharp LN-LW3A1 is a solar-powered LED street light combines a Seismic Motion Sensor that detects the occurrence of a major earthquake measuring 5 or greater while delivering full brightness during nighttime hours for two days. With a lifetime of 10 years, the zero-maintenance street light certainly seems like a lamp for a greener future.

• Night Owl

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Industrial designer Edan Kurzwell has develop the Night Owl lighting system that is illuminated via high-output LED clusters that rely on batteries charged by large flexible polymer solar films incorporated on the top of the lights. The lights would also be hardwired into the city’s power grid to return any additional solar energy back to the city or to draw minimal charging power during long winters, or extended periods of time without sunlight.

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• Seagull

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The Seagull is a solar and wind-powered spinning streetlight that stores renewable energy in a battery placed at the base of the light pole. Solar panels takes the center stage during day time and the spinning wind turbines are for the night.

• SonUmbra

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The SonUmbra has been designed by Loop.pH as a unique interactive solar-powered tree lighting system. The structure comes with strands of light-emitting fabric woven into a lucent web of branches. The SonUmbra gets powered from a PV-equipped canopy that harnesses solar energy during the day and stored it in onboard batteries to light the tree up after dark.

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• Trash-powered Streetlamp

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Industrial designer Haneum Lee has come up with a concept lighting system that not only reduces the energy demands but also composts food waste. The lamppost composts trash and uses the methane which is released as a byproduct to fuel the lights. The concept lamp allows users to throw their organic waste into a wastebasket, which further recycles it for the desired energy.

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• Nature Power Light Your Road

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Industrial designers Zhou Qian and Tao Ma have tried to bring wind and solar energy generating techniques together in a concept streetlight dubbed Nature Power Light Your Road. The system comes in the form of a flower, with the petals equipped with solar panels and a wind turbine as well. Whatever energy the combination generates, is stored in onboard batteries, which is then relayed to a set of LED lights after dark.

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• Light Tree

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The Light Tree by designer Omar I. Huerta Cardoso has been crafted like a tree with nanotube solar cells that provide unique aesthetics aside from great functionality. The concept combines hydroponic techniques with the latest solar cell technology and features water inside to efficiently conduce the light generated by a range of ultra-bright LEDs placed in the base. The water feeds the seeds towards the top of the tree.

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• Hybrid Wind and Solar Powered Street Lamp

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These hybrid streetlamps by Urban Green Energy consist of a solar array topped with a wind turbine. The generators churn out up to 380W of electrical power to keep these lamps glowing through the night.

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• Flow Bamboo Lighting

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The Flow by IGenDesign is a public lighting system with a difference that harnesses sustainable materials and energy to light the bleak nights at secluded places. Featuring a structure finished in bamboo that supports LEDs, wires and the dynamo, the self-maintaining light works on the principle of vertical wind turbine and seizes the wind from all directions to power the lamp at night.

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• Turbine Light

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Designed by TAK Studio, the Turbine Light produces energy from air turbulence caused by passing traffic. The contraption or conception channelizes the electrical energy to illuminate the way of the passing vehicles.

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• Light Blossom

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Designed by Philips, the Light Blossom lighting solution will give you LED-illuminated streets with the power of the sun and the wind. The lights that come with petals keep on transforming and changing their position to get the most out of the sun and wind throughout the day. As night falls, these lights get into a “stand-by” mode, and keep emitting the minimum light required for safety. But as someone crosses the street below, the proximity sensors mounted on the lights enable the lights to come out of the stand-by mode and shower the street with the maximum light that can be offered.

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• Mawaridoro Lamp

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Toshihiko Suzuki Architects and Associates have developed the Mawaridoro wind-powered lighting system that uses wind speeds of 1.5m/s to rotate a lampshade measuring 30 cm in diameter. The energy generated is directly used to illuminate the LEDs. Excessive power is stored in a nickel hydride battery for quiet evenings.

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