Background
The clubs existing mains powered lighting only provided partial illumination for the car park and was a general safety concern with poor lighting levels for the numerous elderly members of the club tripping or falling as well as general security concerns. Expanding the existing mains powered lighting systems would have been costly due to cutting and trenching through existing bitumen not to mention disruption to the club with the extensive ground works.
Solution
To adequately illuminate the car park ten (10) x GFS-200 solar street light units were deployed, eight of these set to run the standard 30W constant light all night program and two lights running a custom 60W setting. Green Frog Systems recommended this setting change to reduce the number of lights required to reach the level of illumination requested by the club.
This custom configuration was possible due to the circumstances specific to this site. The club is located in a deeply residential location which would be impacted by the brightly lit car park should it run all night. A decision was made by the client to operate the lights for six hours after dusk which would safely cover the operating hours of the club without impacting the local residents unnecessarily. This operating profile would also extend battery life as the system would only use 10-20% of the harvested power and reduce the chances of excessive battery discharge.