ITI automates street lamps

The Industrial Technology Institute(ITI) launched a project last year to automate street lamps to check electricity waste. Phase one of the project is a timer - based switch attached to the street lamp where the sunset time and the sunrise time for 365 days is programmed.

This is done to eliminate seasonal variations and already 13 units have been installed at Bauddhaloka Mawatha, Nidahas Mawatha, Sarana Road and Vidya Mawatha which controls over 150 street lamps.

The CMC has 13,000 street lamps and if all these lamps are automated, the saving is equal to shutting down of the Matara power plant for three days, said Research Scientist M.S.M. Aroos.

He said that this will help save foreign exchange as well as the environment in the long run.

ITI promotes the invention of locally technology which is cheap and maintained locally. Laboratory Technologist, R.A.S. Devapriya who was instrumental in incorporating the seasonal variations to the switch said that one unit can handle 50 lamps. He said that the device can be fixed to existing street lamps and therefore no new installations were required.

Research Scientist, Thejani Fernando said that there are 500,000 legal street lamps and 200,000 illegal ones. She said that this is still in the pilot project phase and was happy about the support from the CEB and CMC.

She said that the CMC needs 80 people to manually switch on and switch off lights while they have only 40 at present who are paid over time.

Aroos said that they have also initiated the second phase under which the street lamps of the entire country can be switched on and off using the same device but with a radio receiver. They have already done a test run with the SLBC and it was a success.

Under the third stage of the project they plan to provide the data needed by the CMC about the street lamps by connecting all the lamps to a control room. He said that this is a wireless system for which the planning and designs have been done and given to the CMC. They have agreed to give a research grant as well for the project.Aroos said that they have tested the units under harsh conditions and was happy with the progress.

Project Advisor A.S. Pannila and Research Engineer R.M. Weerasinghe are also in the team and they are confident that it is a success and a solution to the electricity wasted by street lamps. - SG