Sun-rich Santa Fe, New Mexico, with solar insolation values that average about 6.5 (on a scale of 0-9, according to NREL), is in the final stages of installing solar-powered LED lights along the pathways at Frenchy's Field, a 17-acre passive recreation city park located between Aqua Fria, a subdivision, and the Santa Fe River.
Working with Albuquerque-based Qnuru, a designer of architecturally pleasing solar-powered LED lighting, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department is hoping that the successful completion of the Frenchy’s Field solar lighting project will lead to more solar lighting throughout the city.
The solar-powered lights, elegant enough to grace Constitution Boulevard, offer advanced solar engineering technology along with integrated, proprietary control systems. These systems provide multiple digital microcontrollers to deliver intelligent power management features like dimming, motion-tracking and timer settings that can be preset or user selected.
The reason Parks Division Director Fabian Chavez chose the lights was for their Dark Sky compliance. Chavez, who had been searching for over a year for a way to brighten city parks without creating a lighting situation neighbors would object to, found the Qnuru solar lights, with their non-glare directional down lighting, a perfect solution.
Dark Sky lighting ordinances like the one in Santa Fe attempt to preserve the glory of the night sky for stargazers and astronomers, and also help address the impact artificial lighting has on wildlife and the natural world. This “light pollution” causes disorientation among species like birds, and may affect species reproduction among amphibians, insects and fish.
The solar-powered lights, more than a dozen of them, will cost about $18,000 but eliminate the need for wiring and reduce the costs of park maintenance by reducing electricity bills. Designed with a lens at the top that aims the sun’s rays into concealed photovoltaic collectors, the 15-foot tall lights will run along a path between a parking lot and a bridge across the Santa Fe River, a spot Chavez describes as “an emerging major thoroughfare for cyclists and walkers”. The park itself, planted with native wildflowers, provides direct access to other walking and biking trails throughout Santa Fe’s park system.
The low-power LED (light-emitting diode) technology will allow the downward-directed beams to change levels, from bright to dim, lighting the pathways for most of the night or turning on only in response to the motion of passersby.
Qnuru, a solar technology startup funded through Albuquerque-based venture capital fund Noribachi, plans to offer the lights for sale nationwide at the end of the year, after local school children conclude a naming campaign.
Joe Gillach, Qnuru’s vice president of marketing, is convinced that directional, programmable LED solar lighting will find increasing adoption throughout cities in the near future, not only because it reduces electricity costs and greenhouse gases (emitted by coal and fossil-fuel- powered electricity generation), but because it protects sensitive wildlife from the effects of manmade light pollution. LED lighting also requires fewer materials, and eliminates mercury from the manufacturing waste stream, unlike standard incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs, or CFLs.
Santa Fe’s Streets Division has already jumped on the mercury-free LED bandwagon by replacing about 6,000 incandescent bulbs in traffic lights with LEDs – a move that has already paid for itself, according to section manager Rick Devine.