Street lamp management system developed

Ishara MUDUGAMUWA

A street lamp management system has been developed by research engineers and scientists of the Electro Technology Laboratory of the Industrial Technology Institute (ITI) to reduce energy consumption of the street lamp network, ITI Additional Director Ananda S Pannila.

According to Power and Energy Ministry statistics, the Ceylon Electricity Board loss is Rs 2,673 million per year due to the lack of a proper street light management system. There are nearly 700,000 street lamps in the country which consume about 150 Gigawatt hours of electricity per a year. "The ITI has introduced two types of Street Lamp Management Systems. One system is based on a timer and the other is based on a radio frequency controlled remote on/off switching system. The timer based system switches on and off in response to signals emitted by the timer fixed on-location. Switching on/off times are planned considering the seasonal changes." said Pannila.

He said the first phase of the pilot project for the Timer Based Street Lamp Management System has already been completed and is performing successfully. The ITI is presently holding discussions with CEB officials to select the Timer Based Street Lamp Management System for one of the CEB's projects.