Azerbaijan switches to energy-saving road technology
By Sabina Idayatova
The Azerbaijani Transport Ministry plans to switch to new LED
lights with the purpose of energy-saving and reducing the operating
costs for various technical devices -- both vehicle and
pedestrian.
New LED lights will be initially set at two intersections in
Baku and Sumgayit.
In accordance with the proposal of cooperation, submitted by the
Telemexanika JSC (Kabardino-Balkaria Republic, Russia) to the
Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO),
the talks were held on the implementation of a pilot project with
the Azerbaijani technical services upon the Transport Ministry's
instruction.
"The project envisages installation of a set of traffic lights
and other technical equipment, manufactured by Telemexanika, at two
intersections in Baku and Sumgayit, including one set of device
powered by 220 volt, and the other set powered by 12 volt through
alternative sources - solar panels of Azerbaijani production,"
AZPROMO said.
The Russian company offers Azerbaijan to supply LED traffic lights,
traffic controllers, energy-saving lighting technology (modular LED
lamps for lighting of roads, streets, bridges, industrial buildings
and housing facilities).
The first LED traffic lights with additional background lighting
support structures was installed at the intersection of Uzeyir
Hajibayli with Pushkin Street (near the Government House).
The priority of these traffic lights from the existing ones is
their day and night visibility, that contribute to better provision
of safe passage intersection. Furthermore, neither buses nor trucks
can close the purview of these traffic lights.
The application of new LED traffic lights and LED light blocks to replace the optical system in traffic lights with incandescent lamps enables to significantly reduce energy consumption and operating costs of maintenance of traffic lights, as well as to improve road safety.
Advantages of LED traffic lights is the low power consumption, longer lifetime by roughly 10 times, the high operational reliability (with 50,000 hours of mean time between failures, whereas incandescent lamps are designed for 2,000 hours), exclusion of false signals from the traffic lights under the reflection of sunlight due to the lack of color filters, high mechanical strength due to the use of modern materials.