2020 7th International Conference on Signal Processing and Integrated Networks (SPIN)
An Improved Energy-efficient Street Lighting
System
Pragna Labani Sikdar
Dept. of Computer Sc. and Engineering
NIT Durgapur
Durgapur, India
email: pragnait2013@gmail.com
Abstract—An energy-efficient street lighting system is proposed
in this paper to reduce the power consumption of the light.
The energy-efficiency is achieved by varying a range of power
and inter-distance between two streetlights for different lighting
classes. In order to obtain such energy-efficiency, various infras-
tructural parameters related to the installation of streetlights
are considered. A threshold of the minimum power requirement
is determined for obtaining the energy-efficiency of the street
lighting system. The simulation result shows an improvement in
energy-efficiency over existing approach.
Index Terms—Energy-efficiency, power consumption, street
lighting, illuminance, lighting class, DIALux.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Public street lighting is an important aspect of our daily life
as it can reduce the number of accidents and crime at night [1].
However, the installation of an energy-efficient street lighting
has been taken into consideration due to a huge wastage of
energy obtained from manual system. Maintaining a lighting
system manually causes an enormous expenditure of electricity
[2] as well as the improper utilization of lighting. In order to
develop an energy-efficient automatic lighting system, some
researchers have contributed their work so far.
In [3], various IR(Infrared) sensors and associated devices
have been used to automatically switch on the light after
detection of an obstacle. The authors in [4], have presented
an outdoor lighting system to control high pressure sodium
lamps. An electronically adjustable smart ballast is used here
to act as a source of power. In another work [5], installation of
the roadway luminaires has been designed based on NSGA-II
(Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm- II) and the result
is then validated. The main focus on recharging battery is
considered in [6]. They tried to reuse the leftover power supply
from the main source under the scenario of power scarcity.
A smart lighting system has been designed on the basis of
multiple security challenges [7]. In another work [8], the
energy-efficiency of the streetlights is approached to maximize
by deriving the relationship among various parameters related
to street conditions. In spite of developing many research in
designing the energy-efficient streetlight from various perspec-
tives, there is still a factor of power consumption from the
source, that in turn increases the maintenance cost of the
lighting system.
978-1-7281-5475-6/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE
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Parag Kumar Guha Thakurta
Dept. of Computer Sc. and Engineering
NIT Durgapur
Durgapur, India
email: parag.nitdgp@gmail.com
So, an energy-efficient street lighting system is proposed in
this paper to reduce the power consumption of the street lights.
It can facilitate a proper utilization of the power source. Here
Light Emitting Diode (LED) lights have been used for better
efficiency in terms of low power consumption. In order to
obtain reduced energy consumption, a range of power for LED
lights and the inter-distance between two streetlights are varied
with each other under the constraints of infrastructural parame-
ters for the installation. Such reduction in energy consumption
is obtained under various circumstances related to different
street conditions also. The simulation results obtained by the
proposed approach show an improvement over the existing
work [8]. In addition, a threshold of minimum power supply
to obtain an energy-efficient lighting system is validated using
the simulation.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: System model
is presented in section II. The problem is formulated in section
III. Next, section IV describes the proposed approach. Various
simulation results are shown in section V. The proposed work
is concluded with a scope of future enhancement in section
VI.
II. S YSTEM M ODEL
In order to present the system model, some technical
parameters, related to the proposed work, are defined primarily
for illustrating further discussions.
• Definition 1 (Luminous flux): It is a measurement of the
brightness emitted from the light source.
• Definition 2 (Illuminance): It is defined as the received
luminous flux per unit of surface which is denoted as E.
The measuring unit of E is lux (lx).
• Definition 3 (Luminance): It is defined as emitted lumi-
nous flux within a given angle which is denoted as L. It is
measured in terms of candela per square meter (cd/m2 ).
• Definition 4 (Average illuminance or luminance): It is
defined as the average value of E or L i.e. minimum
value required throughout the lifetime of the respective
light which are denoted by Eav or Lav respectively.
• Definition 5 (Uniformity): It is defined as the ratio
between the minimum value of E or L at a certain time
to the average value of E or L. The uniformity (U0 ) can
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 2020 7th International Conference on Signal Processing and Integrated Networks (SPIN)

be expressed as U0 = Emin /Eav and U0 = Lmin /Lav TABLE I

in case of illuminance and luminance respectively. CIE RECOMMENDED VALUES OF Eav AND U0 FOR ALL LIGHTING
CLASSES

A. Circumstances related to Street Condition

According to CIE (International Commission on Illumina- P Class C Class M Class
Class Eav U0 Class Eav U0 Class Lav U0
tion) [9] recommendation, adapting lighting has been intro- (lx) (lx) (cd/m2 )
duced for the roads used by different types of users. Based – – – C0 50 0.40 – – –
on the parameters such as the road users and E or L, lighting P1 15 0.20 C1 30 0.40 M1 2.0 0.40
P2 10 0.20 C2 20 0.40 M2 1.5 0.40
classes are categorized into three different types as follows:
P3 7.5 0.20 C3 15 0.40 M3 1.0 0.40
• P (Pedestrian and low speed areas) lighting class: This P4 5.0 0.20 C4 10 0.40 M4 0.75 0.40
category of lighting is suitable for pedestrian and low P5 3.0 0.20 C5 7.5 0.40 M5 0.50 0.35
P6 2.0 0.20 – – – M6 0.30 0.35
traffic areas. The performance of P class is based on Eav .
• C (Conflict areas) lighting class: It is applicable for
motor vehicles in conflict areas such as shopping streets,
TABLE II
complex intersection etc. The performance of C class T YPES OF INSTALLATION DESIGN WITH CORRESPONDING VALUES OF r
lighting is based on Eav and should be able to visualize
Installation design Value of r
the existence of conflict areas, intersection and other high
one-sided r≤1
speed vehicles. two-sided staggered 1 < r < 1.5
• M (Motorized areas) lighting class: This lighting class is two-sided coupled r ≥ 1.5
applicable for drivers of motorized vehicles. The perfor-
mance of M class is based on Lav .
Each of these three lighting classes have a range of sub- Again, the parameter ε is related to r by a quadratic polyno-
classes depending on the value of several parameters such as mial. A quadratic curve is obtained for energy-efficiency (ε)
traffic volume, speed of the pedestrians or traffic, intersection for different values of r. Therefore, ε in terms of r can be
density etc. For example, the classes P, C and M are further presented as follows:
classified as P1 to P6, C0 to C5 and M1 to M6 respectively.
“Table. I” specifies the standard values to be maintained for ε = a 0 + a1 r + a2 r 2 (2)
Eav and U0 in all the lighting classes. These values are
specified by CIE. Where ai (i = 0, 1, 2) are the coefficient of the quadratic
B. Installation Design polynomial fitting characteristics of different lights provided
by the manufacturer [10]. So, from “(1)” and “(2)”, it can be
An important parameter for installing street light is the ratio expressed by the following.
(r) of width (w) of the road to the height (H) of the luminaires
i.e. r = w/H. Depending on the value of r, the installation kPc w w 2
design can be classified into three categories, such as: (a) Eav = × [a0 + a1 ( ) + a2 ( ) ] (3)
wS H H
one-sided (b) two-sided staggered and (c) two-sided coupled
which are shown in “Fig. 1”. In this figure, ‘A’ denotes From “(3)”, it is clear that, we can use increasing values
the area covered by each luminaire. Measurement of such A of Pc to maximize Eav . However, raising the value of Pc
depends on the value of w, inter-distance (S) between two does not support the efficiency of the system, because they
lights and the installation design factor (k). For example, if are inversely related to each other as shown in “(1)”. So
the arrangement is one-sided, then k = 1 and similarly, k = 2 the aim of the proposed work is to construct an energy-
denotes two-sided installation. The values of r are different efficient lighting installation design that maximizes Eav while
for these categories of installation as listed in “Table. II”. the power requirement of the system is minimized.
Now, for the sake of simplicity to formulate the problem
III. P ROBLEM F ORMULATION addressed in this work, the infrastructural parameters of the
In order to measure the effectiveness of the proposed street e.g. w and H are defined by user specified value. Again
system, the energy-efficiency (ε) of the streetlight can be for different values of Pc , a very negligible changes in the
expressed as follows: values of ai ’s can be observed. Therefore, this problem can
Eav A be formulated as follows:
ε= (1)
Pc
Pc
Where ‘Pc ’ denotes the electrical power consumed by each Eav = k × × Cn (4)
S
luminaire. From “(1)”, it can be stated that, the efficiency of
the system is to be considered for better Eav with minimum Where Cn denotes the user specified parameters of the
power requirement while maintaining the CIE recommenda- model. Thus, Eav is calculated for a range of different values
tion of the lighting design as referred in “Table. I”. of Pc and S using LED lights.

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 2020 7th International Conference on Signal Processing and Integrated Networks (SPIN)

The simulation is carried out with MATLAB 9.4.0.813654

(R2018a). “Table. III” summarizes the parameters with their
corresponding values used for the simulation.

TABLE III
(a) one-sided installation (w ≤ (b) two-sided staggered instal- PARAMETERS USED IN SIMULATION
H) lation (w > (H − 1.5H))
Parameters Value
Road width (w) 7 meter
Height of the luminaires (H) 10 meter
Installation design factor (k) 1
Range of Power (Pc ) 25–125 watt
Range of Inter-distance (S) 10–50 meter

(c) two-sided coupled installation

(w ≥ 1.5H)
B. Simulation Results
Fig. 1. Various types of installation design (a) one-sided, (b) two-sided
staggered and (c) two-sided coupled. In order to estimate Eav , first the constant term (Cn ) of
our model is calculated using the values as summarized in
“Table. III”. Now, it is used for evaluating Eav from “(4)” with
IV. P ROPOSED A PPROACH a range of 25–125 watt of power and 10–50 meter of inter-
Initially, the width of the road (w), height of the luminaires distance. The average illuminance for various power and inter-
(H) and coefficients of the polynomial fitting (a0 , a1 , a2 ) distance is shown in “Fig. 2”. From this figure, the possible
are initialized by the user. The system would calculate the combinations of Pc vs. S are determined for which the values
constant factor Cn of the installation design. Accordingly, Eav of Eav corresponds to C0 – C5 described in “Table. I”. The
is calculated for a range of m numbers of power (Pc ) and respective values of Pc vs. S are shown in “Table. IV”.
n numbers of inter-distance (S). In addition, to obtain the
threshold of the minimum power requirement, for every pos- TABLE IV
sible combination of Pc and S, least value of Pc , maintaining VALUES OF Eav WITH CORRESPONDING Pc AND S
the CIE recommendation for Eav , is evaluated. This procedure Class Pc (watt) S(meter) Eav (lx)
is described by “Algorithm. 1”. C0 116 20 50.0953
C1 125 28 29.9900
Algorithm 1 Proposed Approach C2 88 29 20.0018
C3 66 29 15.0013
1: Initialize w, ai , H C4 44 29 10.0009
a a a ×w
2: Cn ← w0 + H1 + 2H 2 C5 66 48 7.5007
3: for Pc = Pc1 to Pcm do
4: for S = S1 to Sn do
5: Eav ← k × PSc × Cn
6: end for
7: end for
8: for every sub-class j in a specific lighting class do
9: [Xj , Yj ] ← Eav [j]
10: end for
11: Set Pc ← min[Xj ]

V. S IMULATION S TUDIES
This section is divided into two subsections as discussed
next.
A. Simulation Setup
In the proposed work, a range of 100 watt of power (Pc )
and 40 meter of inter-distance (S) have been considered for Fig. 2. Interrelationship among Eav , Pc and S.
the simulation. According to CIE recommendation, the value
of S should be in the range of [10–50] meter. For the sake Now, in order to determine the threshold of the minimum
of simplicity, our proposed work has been implemented for power requirement, the values of Pc obtained from the simu-
one-sided (k = 1) installation design. The model is also con- lation is validated by using DIALux [11]. The parameters that
sidered for lighting class C, mainly applied to conflict areas. are used for the validation here are average illuminance (Eav )

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 2020 7th International Conference on Signal Processing and Integrated Networks (SPIN)

(a) DIALux result for 44 watt (b) DIALux result for 66 watt (c) DIALux result for 88 watt

Fig. 3. Simulation obtained by DIALux

and uniformity (U0 ). First the least power obtained from the Remark 1: The energy-efficiency of the lighting installation
simulation i.e. 44 watt is validated using DIAlux. From the is measured by the factor Power Density Indicator (Dp ), which
simulation as well as the result obtained from DIALux, it is is calculated as an inverse of the efficiency [12]. In “Fig. 5”,
validated that LED light with 44 watt is efficient in case of it is observed that the value of Dp is 0.024 W/lx.m2 , that
C5 lighting class, as shown in “Fig. 3(a)”. is lower than the existing algorithm [8], indicating that the
However, our aim is to emphasize it for all the sub-classes of energy-efficiency of the proposed work is an improvement
C lighting class. Here, DIALux is used to optimize the inter- over the existing approach.
distance for which the corresponding power is efficient for
every sub-class. However from the result shown in “Fig. 3(a)”,
LED light with 44 watt is not efficient for C0 and C1 lighting
classes as value of inter-distance in these sub-classes lies
below 10 meter. In that case, we move to the second least
power obtained from the simulation i.e 66 watt and validate
it’s efficiency for every sub-class. Similarly, from the result
shown in “Fig. 3(b)”, we can say that the LED light with 66
watt of power is also not efficient for C0, C1 and C2 lighting
classes. However, “Fig. 3(c)” shows that LED light with 88
watt of power is efficient for every sub-class of C lighting class
with the optimized inter-distance as highlighted by DIALux.
The results from DIALux in “Fig. 3” also highlights that,
the better average illuminance is obtained for lowering the
inter-distance. The value of S for 88 watt of LED light varies
in the range of [10-50] meter, so LED light with this power
is efficient for all the sub-classes of C lighting class and this
denotes the threshold of minimum power requirement. Here
our proposed work shows efficient lighting in case of C0 - C5
classes while using less power consumption than the existing Fig. 4. Improvement obtained by the proposed work over existing approach.
work [8]. As a result, an improved value of Eav is obtained,
which is shown in “Fig. 4”.

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 2020 7th International Conference on Signal Processing and Integrated Networks (SPIN)
Fig. 5. Detailed documentation obtained from DIALux for 88 watt LED in case of C5.
VI. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, an energy-efficient street lighting system
is proposed by minimizing the power consumption of the
streetlights. Here the proposed algorithm is compared with the
existing work on the basis of energy-efficiency of the street
lights. The simulation result for threshold of the minimum
power requirement is validated by DIALux. Implementing
other lighting classes such as P and M with consideration
of k = 2 would be the future scope for enhancement of this
work.
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