The solar street light industry is growing exponentially with governments and organizations across the country and the globe offering incentives for solar installation. In the United States over 200 city mayors and city managers have committed to going 100% renewable by 2030. This growth is also being fueled by the increasing cost of traditional fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas power plants while renewables are going down. Renewables just surpassed fossil fuels for the first time ever last month. The government of India is planning to replace 35,000,000 street lights and almost 800,000,000 incandescent light bulbs with LED lights.

Solar lighting is becoming more popular globally but even more so in countries like Africa and Asia where there is limited infrastructure. The innate ability of solar lighting to be constructed off grid is making it an easy decision due to the lower cost compared to building out a traditional power grid. Pilot programs have proven the efficiency and cost effectiveness of solar over traditional infrastructure and the time to complete installation is far less.

Due to the fact that solar street lights can be utilized off grid and independent of the power grid they are extremely in demand for lighting rural locations. The only real caveat is to make sure that there is plenty of sunlight to charge the batteries. Some solar lighting providers such as ClearWorld utilize batteries than can store power for as long as 8 days on a single charge. Their solar lighting systems can charge even during long periods of cloudiness for as long as a month. The cylindrical design of their solar panels is also wind resistant to over 150 mph making them a favorite along coastal regions that get major tropical storms.

Top Trends In The Solar Street Light Market

In addition to providing alternatives that are cost effective, efficient, and off-grid, solar street lights also reduce the load on the power grid. Unlike traditional lighting where terrain can make trenching and cabling near impossible in some areas, solar street lights can be installed virtually anywhere. Solar street lights also come with the advantage of bearing low or even negligible maintenance costs, low wiring efforts and no transformer costs for off-grid lights.

Education is a major factor in growing the solar street light market that is still dominated by traditional lighting rivals and utilities that don’t see the writing on the wall. Company stakeholders and customers alike are still juggling the cost of installation and energy savings with the new technology. For some regions there just isn’t sufficient sunlight to justify solar. Alaska for example, has over two months of complete darkness so a system there would need to be comprised of a combination of solar and wind energy.

The Asia Pacific region is one of the highest volume users in the solar street lighting market globally and this trend is unlikely to change. China and India represent the vast majority of people on the planet and therefor are the biggest users of power. Europe and North America will remain major players in the solar street light market because the technology is more readily accepted and more governments are committing to moving to 100% renewables.

ClearWorld is a growing leader in the solar street light market with installations in over 80 cities and 10 countries. The company also has major solar lighting installations on military bases and in local, state, and National Parks.