Solar power panel for parking lot lighting

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anbm

Senior Member
We have a finishout project and the owner wants to have lights on top level of a parking garage to be powered from a solar power source. We have total of 7 light poles (to support metal halide fixtures) at the top level, total lighting load is around 1535 VA @ 277V/1PH.

Does anyone knows any solar power sources, panels that can be used in this application as far as code and maintenance work requirement? This is a weird idea for such quantity of lights but this is what they want. Thanks!
 

LLSolutions

Senior Member
Location
Long Island, NY
You can't power the lights directly off the panels. The way most solar systems work is to back feed the service through a DC to AC converter and a safety disconnect. You can install 1535 watts worth of solar panels and it would offset the cost of the MH fixtures. So what would end up happening is these fixtures would just add to the total KWH of the building and the solar panels would remove or offset some of those KWH.
 

iwire

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Massachusetts
This is going to be ridiculously expensive.

Look in 690 for the code rules, there are a lot.

There is so much to decide, will the system be entirely independent or utility interactive? How many sunless days are you going to plan for? Are some of the lights legally required egress lighting?

There are a ton of manufacturers, you will need the right batteries, charge controller, inverter, disconnects panels, mounts, maybe combiner boxes. Almost all of those items will be from different manufacturers.
 

anbm

Senior Member
Iwire,

Egress lighting shall be powered from building utility source, I think they want to use solar power source to reduce monthly electric bill produced by MH lamps for a long run (-:
 

anbm

Senior Member
I mean egress lights shall be powered from building normal power utility source and generator through ATS. The lights they want to fed from solar power source shall be independent from any utility sources.
 

iwire

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Massachusetts
Iwire,

Egress lighting shall be powered from building utility source, I think they want to use solar power source to reduce monthly electric bill produced by MH lamps for a long run (-:

So you would need to get the utility on board with this, you should also see if the customer can get some rebates from the Govt.
 

iwire

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Massachusetts
The lights they want to fed from solar power source shall be independent from any utility sources.

If they are entirely independent you will need a huge amount of batteries.

As LLSolutions was saying best bet is to power the poles from the building as normal and install a utility interactive system of sufficient size to offset the cost of the lighting.
 

dbuckley

Senior Member
You need to work out the amp-hours of storage you need from the consumption and working hours (not forgetting inverter efficiency), and then figure out how much solar cellage you will need to charge it up, based on lousy sunlight days at your location.

IWire said "This is going to be ridiculously expensive" - he's right.
 

steve66

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
Occupation
Engineer
This is now possible (in most of the USA) using LED lights. A couple of companies make LED pole lights with the solar panel (and the battery too, i guess) built into the fixture. Check out Carmanah and Beta Lighting.

You also get a very long lamp life. Until now, I never thought about how long the battery lasts. They might even use a super cap instead of a battery.

Steve
 

BKDog

Member
hey you definitely need to get the utility one board
if you do not get a metering meter you will actually add the wattage produced by the cells to the amount of usage and potentially double their electrical bill.
 

anbm

Senior Member
There are some manufacturers make the solar panel mounted on top of light pole but these panels can power up to 42w CF not MH lamp. I guess I have to tell owner to trash this idea. Thanks for all the inputs.
 
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