Wattage of Street Lights: How Many Watts Do They Use?

Contents
Wattage of Street Lights How Many Watts Do They Use

Nowadays, many countries have changed their street lights to LED ones on a large scale because they can save energy, protect the environment, and have other advantages. The reason they can save energy is because of their high efficiency. With the same wattage, they can emit a brighter light than the HPS street lights. So how many watts should the street lights for different places use? How much energy can they save? Find the answers about the wattage of LED street lights in the following passage!

The wattage of common LED street lights

Choosing street lights with appropriate wattage, as a part of the LED street light installation design, is essential. Generally speaking, urban main roads, commercial centers, and crowded places need high-wattage street lights to ensure the safety of pedestrians and vehicles. As for residential areas and roads with infrequent traffic, you can choose low-wattage street lights to save energy.

Specifically, on the main roads of the city, it is generally more appropriate to choose street lights of 100 watts to 150 watts, while on small streets in residential areas, street lights of 50 watts to 100 watts can meet the lighting requirements.

Factors affecting the wattage of street lights

Types of the roads

local roads

As there are different types of roads in the city, the traffic varies accordingly. Also, these roads have different requirements for the wattage of street lights:

  1. For expressways and major roads: They are relatively long and wide and have heavy traffic. What’s more, vehicles on these roads always run fast, so they need brighter lights to guarantee safety. Thus the wattage of the street lights for double-lane roads is usually 30 W to 120 W.
  2. For collector roads: Collector roads are more narrow than major roads, but they function together with the major roads to form a network that connects one place with another. The wattage of the street lights for double-lane collector roads can range from 20 W to 30 W.
  3. For local roads and residential roads: Local roads connect collector roads and residential areas. And residential roads are those pathways for pedestrians and non-motor vehicles. These places have lower requirements for the street lights, and 15 W to 20 W will be enough.

Height of the street lights

The higher the street lights are, the more area they can illuminate. Therefore, those main roads need higher street lights. And the LED lights also need higher power so that the light is bright enough to reach the ground. You can find the relationship between the height and wattage of street lights in the following table.

HeightWattageEffective illumination range
4 m20 W20 m2
4 m30 W25-30 m2
5-6 m40-60 W45-55 m2
7-9 m80-100 W60-80 m2
10-12 m120-150 W90-100 m2

street lights of different height

Width of the roads

Street lights’ height is closely related to the width of the roads. The effective road width is equal to the width of the road minus the length of the overhang. That is the distance between the centers of two lights. There are three ways to place the street lights. One is a single-sided installation, the other is a double-sided staggered installation, and the third is a double-sided symmetrical installation. If it is installed on one side, the height of the street light and the effective width of the road surface should be the same. Or, the value of the height should be larger than the width. If it is a staggered installation, it is 0.7 times the effective width of the road surface. If It is installed symmetrically on both sides, it should be 0.5 times the effective width of the road surface. The following table shows how the height and width affect the wattage:

HeightWidth of the roadWattage
5 m6-8 m15-30 w
6 m8-10 m30-45 w
7-8 m10-15 m60 w
8 m16 m80 w

Surrounding environment

If the places where the street lights will be installed already have strong light sources, then the wattage of the street lights should be reduced accordingly. Strong light will cause glare and disturb the drivers. On the contrary, if the surrounding environment is very dark and the road has a high requirement for lighting, then you should choose street lights with a higher wattage.

How much power does a LED street light consume per day?

For HPS lights, the wattage of the common ones is usually 150 watts. If the working hour is 10 h, the electricity one HPS light consumes will be 1.5 kWh. While common LED lights only need a wattage as low as 50 w to meet the lighting requirements, They will consume 0.5 kWh when working for 10 hours. Besides, there is also some additional electricity consumption for the driver, control system, circuit, and so on, but this consumption is relatively low. So, comprehensively speaking, LED street lights save more energy than HPS lights. The electricity different LED street lights use may vary according to the places they are at.

Conclusions

Besides those key factors deciding the wattage of LED street lights, there are also other things to consider, like urban planning, traffic conditions, crowd density, etc. Changing your old street lights into LED ones and choosing an appropriate wattage are two essential missions to save on road planning costs.

To achieve this, you can choose a helpful and experienced LED light manufacturer like Mokolight. Since Moko has produced LED street lights for over 17 years, we are able to answer your questions about LED street lights and help you pick up suitable and high-quality ones. Moko’s street lights are produced in our own factory, which covers an area of 12,400 m2. Over 600 workers work to realize every single requirement of our customers’ projects. There are sophisticated instruments for professional tests, and all products are certified by UL, BSCI, etc. You will be sure to find the best LED street lights with the wattage you need!

Written by ——
Scott Hughes
Scott Hughes
Double Bachelor's degrees in Architecture and Electrical Engineering, 5+ years of experience with LED lighting, intelligent moving lights, and conventional fixtures. Reach Me Now>>
Scott Hughes
Scott Hughes
Double Bachelor's degrees in Architecture and Electrical Engineering, 5+ years of experience with LED lighting, intelligent moving lights, and conventional fixtures. Reach Me Now>>
Share this post
Scroll to Top
Scroll to Top