Enerlight project: Walking from Electronic Lighting
Systems to Lighting Smart Grid
Jaureguizar M.
NORMALUX Company
General Manager
Asturias - Spain
mikel@normalux.com
Rico-Secades M.
University of Oviedo
IEEE senior member - Ce3i2 group
Asturias - Spain
mrico@uniovi.es
Corominas E.L.
University of Oviedo
IEEE member - Ce3i2 group
Asturias-Spain
elopez@uniovi.es
Abstract—The purpose of this paper is think over lighting
systems in the context of energy efficiency and incorporation of
renewable energy sources and energy storage capabilities. In this
new context Lighting Systems becomes a mixture of distributed
load with regulation capability, a distributed energy generation
system and, simultaneously, a distributed energy storage system.
In the context of this cocktail Lighting Systems (in particular,
Street Lighting Systems) are called to play an important role in
Smart Grid strategies.
This paper (an ENERLIGHT Project works) goes to the
concept of Lighting Smart Grid (LSG), with the evaluation of
different configurations looking for different strategies, planning
specification and development of different modules in LSG
strategies. This is the first of a series of articles, which describes
the ENERLIGHT project work aimed to develop elements and
systems that can be used in lighting intelligent networks
(Lighting Smart Grids - LSG).
This first article is descriptive and aims to raise the issue, and
reflect on possible approaches, define the modules developed in
the proposed system. Subsequent papers will develop more
technical and specific aspects of specific modules in the system
with discussion of design options and experimental results.
Keywords—Street Lighting, Smart Grid, Lighting Smart Grid,
LED lighting, Renewable Energy, Solar Energy, Wind Energy,
Battery Management System, Lithium Batteries, Bidirectional
Converters, Maximum Power Point Tracking.
978-1-4799-2911-5/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE
Garcia-Llera D.
University of Oviedo
IEEE member - Ce3i2 group
Asturias-Spain
danielgarciallera@yahoo.com
Calleja A.J.
University of Oviedo
IEEE member - Ce3i2 group
Asturias-Spain
calleja@uniovi.es
I. INTRODUCTION
In our country Spain, exists a saying: “Muchos pocos hacen
un mucho” (more or less: a lot of “fews” make a “lot”), and this
idea is fully applicable to Street Lighting Systems and the new
opportunities and strategies this infrastructure offers.
In reference [1] and referred to Spain the energy
consumption in street lighting is around 115 kWh per year and
person (a chilling fact, one of the highest in Europe).
Translating this date to a city with a population of 100.00
inhabitants the energy goes to 11.5 GWh per year. It is clear
from different sources that lighting is one of the most important
energy loads.
In the same reference [1], it has been established the
average power for the lamp used in street lighting in our
country: 160 W.
In the hypothetical city of 100.000 inhabitants a number of
19.692 of this “average lamps” with 160 W in operation during
10 hours per day are needed to consume 11.5 GWh and it exist
one of this “average lamps” for each 5 inhabitants.. This is
another obvious point: the number of street lightning points is
enormous and the possibilities of energy savings and energy
efficiency strategies are also obvious.
Reducing the power of the “average lamp” to 100 W (using
LED lighting) a 37.5% of reduction in the energy required is
obtained and using additionally power regulation (i.e. 5 hours
with 50% of Power) energy savings goes to 53.1%.
 100.000 inhabitants
100.000 inhabitants Power
Power
1.9 MW
3.1 MW
19.692 lamps
19.692 lamps
Energy 100 W/lamp
Energy 160 W/lamp 7.2 MWh/year
11.5 MWh/year 10 hours/day
10 hours/day 100%
100%
(b) LED lighting
(a) INITIAL 37.5% energy savings

100.000 inhabitants
Power
1.9 MW

19.692 lamps

+
Energy 100 W/lamp
5.4 MWh/year
5 hours/day
100%
5 hours/day
50%

(c) LED lighting & Regulation

53.1% energy savings
Fig 1.- Different energy saving strategies.
On the other hand, it is clear that a street lighting
infrastructure designed to handle 1.9 MW can deliver the same
Power during a specific number of hours, obviously, energy
storage capability in the network is required (i.e. energy storage
for 2 days of operation with 10 hours per day at 100% of power
level allows deliver the same power during 20 hours).
100.000 inhabitants
Power
1.9 MW
19.692 lamps
100 W/lamp
Energy stored
2 days operation
10 hours/day at 100%
39.4 MWh
Fig. 2.- Delivering energy using the street lighting infrastructure.
II. STREET LIGHTING CONFIGURATIONS
Figure 3 shows conventional electronic ballast for LED
lamps, usually supplied from mains through a power supply
stage with strong PFC requirements (i.e. IEC 1003-2-class C
normative). Internally a DC bus exists usually with low voltage
(12, 24 or 36 V) in order to simplify LED driver design.
Regulation capability of LED covers 0 to 100% of lighting
range operation and it can accept a wide range of energy
efficiency strategies.
Fig. 3.- Conventional Electronic Ballast for LED Lighting.
Figure 4 shows the traditional structure of a Emergency
Lighting System (ELS) which introduces energy storage
capability in order to assure a specified lighting level in case on
mains failure. The power supply in this applications is
unidirectional ant not energy recovery is expected, although it
could be part of the specification, which is not usual.
Fig. 4.- Conventional structure of a Emergency Lighting System (ELS)
With this approach the lighting infrastructure goes to a
Smart Grid. Street lighting becomes a tool for the electric
utilities: a power load with regulation capability, and both an
energy storage and a generation distributed system.
With the introduction of renewable energy generation (solar
and wind) in this context, the new concept of Lighting Smart
Grid (LSG) appears and it is the main motivation of this work.
Power
1.9 MW
During 20 hours Figure 5 shows an extension of ELS introducing
Renewable Energy (Solar, Wind or both). Renewable energy
systems are designed to operate extracting as much as power as
possible (maximum power point tracking – MPPT) and energy
generated is stored in the battery module. Deliver energy to the
grid in not expected and Power Supply Systems provide safety
to the system to assure lighting capability in any critical
situation.
In this applications energy is generated for internal use.
Figure 6 shows another concept that is beginning to spread
in our cities, autonomous lighting systems powered only from
renewable energies. First designs provide low performances
but advances in LED lighting, power Electronics, solar cells
and battery system (in particular, Li batteries) are going to
improve the new designs. New designs are getting better, with
better features and more interesting from the economic point of
view.
Even are increasingly common elements of urban furniture
(bus shelters, recreational areas, pedestrian crossings, signage,
..) incorporating renewable energy and operate autonomously
with no need to create a specific electrical infrastructure.
With the technological advances power generation capacity
is increasing, solar panels are becoming more affordable and
efficient, the design of small wind generators integrated in
mechanical design are becoming more and more common
(though still much to do, actually designs for aesthetic and
integrated correctly).
The excess energy can be used to provide new services in
the urban environment (eg, points of electric vehicle charging)
or simply injected into the network.
The Smart Grid concept applied to lighting systems is here.
Although the amount of energy is small at each point of light,
we may store or injected by different criteria. Street lighting is system cost is reduced and increase the possibilities for action
no longer an electrical charge and goes on to become a tool for and incorporating new design elements to the grid.
regulating the energy demand curve. Remember also, a lot of
“fews” make one “lot”.

+
+

Fig. 7.- AC Lighting Smart Grid (AC LSG).

Fig. 5.- Lighting System with Renewable Energy (Wind and Sun) with
reduction of energy consumption. With this continuous interconnection strategy, the provision
INTERNAL DC BUS
LED LAMP of new services in the urban environment can be easily
provided, and in any case the simplicity of operation is higher
and the electronic circuitry required is much lower.

LED
DRIVER
SOLAR PV

MPPT
SYSTEM
+

WIND
GENERATOR BI-DIRECTIONAL
CONVERTER BATTERY

BMS SYSTEM

MPPT +
SYSTEM

Fig. 6.- Autonomous Lighting System powered from Renewable Energy.

The downside is in the circuitry needed to inject and extract

energy to the grid. Normally the internal bus voltage is low and
should raise the voltage to then implement a small electronic
inverter for deliver or extract energy from the network. At least
two steps are required and must be bidirectional.
Also in the urban environment may be other points of light,
or other street furniture that may require energy, or we can
generate at any given time be precise. The network can remain
indifferent to these internal problems that can be solved
internally in the grid. Thus, appears the concept of DC Lighting
Smart Grid (DC-LSG).
The individual elements are capable of storing and
generating energy in a distributed manner. They are
continuously interconnected (through a high voltage bus). The
Fig. 9.- DC Lighting Smart Grid: Distributed Energy Storage.
The interconnection continuously keeps the distributed
power generation, even use specific points renewable energy
generation and energy storage centralize with energy injection
to the network that can be done more efficiently to the three-
phase network. The idea in presented in figure 10.
The simplification of the electronic modules in the
lamppost is very important and the existence of two buses
continuous: low voltage one internal and other external for
interconnecting elements and with high voltage, greatly
facilitate the design of power converters.
 The lighting system can act as a solar farm or wind farm for
power generation in some cases and as a controllable load in
others.
The possibility of new services at the point of injection
increases with the increment of energy stored (for example,
charging high power electric vehicles would be possible).
+
+
Fig. 10.- Lighting Smart Grid: Centralized Energy Storage (both Ailed
and Farm operation capability).
III. A MODULAR SYSTEM PROPOSAL FOR LSG
IMPLEMENTATION
The ENERLIGHT project is aimed to designing lighting
systems based on high-efficiency LEDs and focus on the urban
environment, incorporating power generation systems with
solar and wind energy storage systems based on lithium
batteries.
The system is designed to permit interconnection to a
power bidirectional bus (DC grid).
The proposed design is modular and easily scalable and
parallelizable, so that they can develop new urban furniture
elements linked with the developed technology.
The proposed work is to make possible the LSG proposal in
its different configurations and validate its operation via an
experimental prototype.
Figure 11 shows a modular and reconfigurable system for
different Lighting Smart Grid (LSG) proposal. The maximum
lamp power has been fixed in 108 W with 0 to 100% regulation
capability and supplied from an internal DC bus fixed in a
nominal value of 24 volts. All elements have been designed in
order to allow fluctuations of DC bus voltage from15 to 36 V
in order to increase flexibility of developed modules.
The LED Lighting System has been designed with high
flexibility to enable energy efficiency strategies to reduce
consumption, so that the power load that represents the lighting
system can also be used with control element in the strategy
adopted for the LSG. Thus the power load represented by
power LEDs has been distributed in 6 sections of 18 W and it
can be controlled independently.
Within each sector have established three power strips
(Close strip with 3 W, Medium strip with 6 W and Far strip
with 9 W) also independently controllable.
This provides 18 independent lighting elements which may
define different illumination profiles or used as control element
for LSG.
Selective reduction of the power level within a sector, 10%
global reductions or a range of energy efficiency are among the
options which have been implemented.
The detail design of the lighting system based on LED in
the context of operation with the LSG is reserved for future
articles.
Lamp post has been designed using low cost solar PV
modules with thin film technology. A custom made design
have been conducted in collaboration with two Spanish
companies (Ingeneral S.A. and Soliker S.A.). A post with
triangular section and longitudinal dimension of 1.3 meters and
made with three solar PV modules has been developed.
Design is completely modular and allows three heights for
the lamp-post. A Small Design with one module of 1.3 meters
and 3 PV solar panels, a Medium design with two modules of
1.3 meters (2.6 meters) and 6 PV solar panels and a Large
Design with three modules of 1.3 meters (3.9 meters) and 9
solar panels. Each panel has its Maximum Power Point (MPP)
in 15 W assuming STC conditions (irradiance of 1000 W/m2
and 25 ºC).
Each panel has been provided with a small converter in
order to operate in its Maximum Power Point (MPPT
operation), supplied from the solar panel and with autonomous
operation is ready to deliver energy to the internal DC bus
independently from other converters and completely modular.
Each MPPT system is provided with a small and low cost
MCU and it has been designed without galvanic isolation.
Several power topologies (Buck-Boost, Boost, Tapped-
converter and Flyback without isolation) have been tested with
different control implementations of MPPT algorithm. Details
and discussion for the alternatives proposed for this module
and a complete design procedure will be presented in a future
paper.
The energy storage system has been developed around
Lithium batteries (Li Fe P O4) of the latest generation with 3.2
V and 15 AH per cell. The system is designed in a modular
way (3-cell modules) working independently and
autonomously and can be parallelized independently to
configure storage systems with greater capacity.
Each module has the ability to extract or deliver energy to
the DC bus with a maximum power of 45 W (15 W for each
battery). Its control system has been designed to stabilize the
internal DC bus, ensuring the protection and equalization of the
batteries (Battery Management System-BMS), the independent
operation of each module and the equalization of currents.
Each cell is continuously monitored in voltage, current and
temperature and power to extract or inject each has been
limited to 15 W to ensure long life and comfortable operation permanent magnet generator (PMG) is now under design and
BMS module developed. test.
The design of each storage module (3 cell) has been made The system incorporates an electronic converter which
compatible with the design of solar post system so that in each implements a MPPT algorithm and protection against extreme
module three solar panels has been integrated with 5 storage operation conditions. A MCU control implements the strategies
modules as shown in figure 12. to make them compatible with a street lighting system.
So the Small design with one module of 1.3 meters and 3 The small wind generator is designed to provide a power of
PV solar panels incorporates 5 BMS modules in order to 45 W with wind level of 65 km/h and It has been estimated an
provide 225 W of power handling capability. The Medium day-average energy generation of 400 Wh, considering the
design with two modules of 1.3 meters (2.6 meters) statistical distribution of the wind in the area (Weibull
incorporates 10 BMS modules in order to provide 450 W of distribution).
power handling capability and with the 6 PV solar panels and
the Large design with three modules of 1.3 meters (3.9 meters)
and 9 solar panels incorporates 15 BMS modules in order to
provide 675 W of power handling capability.
The complete design is ready to feed the LED lamp for two
days providing energy to the lamp for 10 hours a day (with the
100% of the power, that is to say 108 W). Obviously, with the
appropriate energy efficiency strategies the autonomy of the
system can be extended to meet different needs.

Fig. 13.- Solar PV Modules (Thin film technology).

It is in study integration of wind turbine in the top of the

lamppost and take advantage of its operation as a means of heat
+

dissipation and cooling for the whole system and, specifically,

of both Lithium batteries and LEDs modules (see figure 15).
+

The details of this work are reserved for future articles.

+

Fig. 11.- Modular and reconfigurable system for different Lighting Smart
Grid (LSG) proposal.
SECTOR 2
9W

6W
SECTOR 3
SECTOR 1
3W
Fig. 12.- ENERLIGHT post module with 3 solar MPPT systems (3 solar
PV modules) and 5 BMS systems (15 Li battery cells).
Dclose
(2m)
Finally, a bidirectional power module for interfacing the
SECTOR 6
SECTOR 4
Dmedium
(4m) internal DC bus (with low voltage) with the external DC bus
Dfar
(High voltage) has been developed. The proposed output
voltage for the external DC bus is the 500 V (± 250 V).
(6 m)

SECTOR 5

Fig. 12.- Power distribution in LED Lamp (ENERLIGHT prototype). This module has been designed to handle 675 W and allow
storage and retrieval strategies in coordination with internal
A small vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) (Gorlov-
energy storage systems. This module allows the connection of
Savonius type) which incorporates a specific designed
various elements to a DC grid, forming operation and the
operability of the LSG and different strategies.
 For this system have been tested several bidirectional
converter topologies (based on tapped-converters and Flyback)
that will receive attention in future articles.
Fig. 13.- Typical application for a small lamppost with solar energy, LED
lighting and one ENERLIGHT post module (isolated operation).
Finally the system thermal study and the integration and
assembly of all the modules to ensure proper system operation,
right eat evacuation, the batteries thermal protection, thermal
protection of LED fixture, etc is one of the most important
technical aspects to consider a complex system as proposed.
Various strategies and techniques in response to thermal
considerations have been evaluated and developed.
It is especially critical in the system, the thermal protection
of lithium batteries and LED modules, for which specific
control strategies have been devised to ensure correct operation
in case of adverse thermal conditions. The paper is analyzing
the possibility of adding forced cooling systems and use wind
generator as tool for heat evacuation.
Fig. 14.- Detail of modular LED driver prototype MCU controlled.
Fig. 15.- Thermal design and system integration.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
A first introductory overview has been made regarding the
potential use of public lighting infrastructure as a system of
power generation and smart grid to store, consume or deliver
energy constituting itself as a new tool to ensure the stability of
the electrical infrastructure. This new concept has been called
Lighting Smart Grid (LSG) and it has been discussed about the
various possibilities of use.
Finally, it has been presented a series of modules developed
and an experimental prototype lighting system that can be
configured in several ways in order to implement several roles
within a LSG system.
The work opens the door to future articles that specifically
develops each of the modules and specific issues that have
been raised in this paper.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work has been supported by “Ministerio de Educación
y Ciencia” of the Spanish Government (ENERLIGHT project-
reference MICINN-10-DPI2010-15889).
Acknowledge the assistance of the Workroom on
Renewable Energy (WRE) collaboration of the Engineering
Polytechnic School of Gijon – Asturias - Spain (EPI-Gijon)
in brainstorming and preparation of prototypes.
Acknowledge the assistance of the company GS S.A. for
the collaboration with the project in LED lighting design.
Acknowledge the assistance of Ingeneral S.A. and Soliker
S.A. companies in the support for developing PV solar
modules.
Finally mention Spanish companies: Talleres Jardon,
Desico and ABZlaser for the help and support given in to the
mechanical design of the prototypes developed.
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