Denmark laboratory shows off latest energy saving street lamps

Global Business

A Danish project is working to ensure the world’s cities use more efficient street lighting and reduce their carbon footprint. Street lamps account for about 6 percent of the globe’s energy output and greenhouse gas emissions. CCTV America’s Malcolm Brabant reported this story from Copenhagen, Denmark.

Scientists estimate that 20 percent of all the world’s energy is spent on light, especially on illuminating towns and cities.

The Danish Outdoor Lighting Lab in Copenhagen hopes to integrate cutting edge smart lamps around the world, including light that is triggered by a car moving past a lamp post.

The lab has set up examples of the most advanced street lighting systems in the world at a small industrial park on the outskirts of Copenhagen so that city planners can choose the best performers for their municipalities.

All the examples has Wi-Fi computer management systems, most contain motion sensors, and some have LEDs that replace traditional light bulbs.

“When you go from a traditional lighting system to an LED lighting system you can save fifty percent. So you can have a really large amount of energy saving. If you do it in an intelligent way so you manage each light post then you can take the rest of your energy consumption and save 50 percent of that. So you will have 75 or 80 percent saving of energy,” Kim Brostrom, chief technical officer at the Danish Lighting Lab said.

The technology could be especially promising in developing nations.

“For the developing countries it’s enormous potential of energy saving. Because they need to focus on taking down their carbon footprint. And just to install the motion sensors and the LEDs give us a lot of savings,” Mikkel Ferm, Nordic director of Zumtobel group, an Austrian lighting company, said.