In January, 2010, the city of Bradenton Beach, Florida, along the central Gulf Coast adjacent Sarasota and Bradenton, completed an installation that everyone can appreciate. They replaced 100W high-pressure sodium street lights and ballasts along the city’s main thoroughfare, fronting on Gulf of Mexico beach land, with 17W LED lights.
Bradenton Beach found a way to eliminate all energy costs because these new LED street lights are solar-powered. This discreet system stores power from the sun during the day via an integral long-life battery pack, and uses the stored energy to illuminate city streets all night long. The new solar-powered LED lights are totally off the county’s electrical grid, saving thousands of pounds of carbon emissions.
What’s more, these LED street lights that face the beach are UrbanLED 590-nm-wavelength street lights, employing site-specific optics and full-cutoff non-glare luminaires, designed by Beacon Products. Light produced by UrbanLED amber is visible to humans and pets, but virtually undetectable to sea turtles that emerge from oceans between May 1 and October 31 yearly to lay their eggs in the sand. Seven to eight weeks later when eggs hatch, baby turtles look for starlight gathering at the ocean horizon to guide them into the sea to begin their lives. Glare from bright, white or other street or nearby area lights, however, can fool turtles into heading towards roads. The amber lighting helps alleviate this problem.
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