Technical Report Background Final

1 Background

With the rising concern of increasing energy consumption, the Energy Market Authority is reviewing new ideas and solutions. Currently, enormous electrical energy is being consumed by street lights controlled through the time of the day. In Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), the streetlamps are using LED’s (light emitting diode) in the carpark. However, there is an inadequate lighting control which means that the lights will be on at full intensity throughout the night. This results in a significant amount of electrical wastage and contributes to SIT's total electrical bill.

 With the development of urbanization, the usage of street lamps increases rapidly due to high traffic and human population density. The roads in Singapore Institute Of Technology must be adequately illuminated to provide sufficient visibility for the safety of pedestrians and vehicles. These street lamps are illuminated for 12 hours from a timing of 7 pm to 7 am, and this results in a need for a  huge amount of electrical power to light them up. According to the article," Singapore Energy Statistics," (Energy Market Authority, 2015) there is an annual increment in electricity consumption which grew by 2.4% in 2015. This shows how high the spending cost of electricity is.

 At any specific point of time in the night in SIT, there is less vehicular motion. Moreover,  some of the roads in SIT have little to zero pedestrian or vehicles movement at night. This is a problem as it means the streetlamps are turned on but the streets are empty at night.

A good street lighting system should provide sufficient lighting and be efficient on electrical consumption. However, such a system is not implemented in SIT. We propose a motion-detecting sensor for the streetlights, such that it will only increase in its light intensity when pedestrians and vehicles are of a certain distance. By implementing this smart lighting system, a huge amount of electrical power would be saved.