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Taken lightly

When solar powered street lights were initially installed to replace the electric ones, it looked like a good choice, especially after all the problems we had with rampant electric wire theft having rendered a lot of street lights useless, resulting in a lot of dark and unsafe areas that are prone to crime and accidents.

Solar powered street lights are easy to install since there is no need for any electrical wiring anymore. All that is needed is the lamp post for the light fixture to be bolted on to. Since each fixture comes with its own PV panel and batteries, it should just charge during the daytime and turn on when it gets dark. It was easy to see how it became a no-brainer replacement for a lot of towns and cities whose electric street lights were no longer functioning properly.

Now that a lot of the new kind of lighting fixtures have been installed all over, we are finally getting to see their performance after long term usage.

On the plus side, they do work as advertised. The lights seem easy to install and provide relatively maintenance free illumination, which means that when they are turned on, a lot of the areas that used to be dark and dreary are now better lit, making those areas safer from accidents and crimes.

However, one of the drawbacks of going wireless is that the new streetlights are now dependent on the condition of the weather and the built in battery for it to work properly throughout the night.

From what I have observed, the solar powered street lights provide illumination throughout the night only if the previous day was a sunny one. If it was not sunny, then the lights are bound to be very dim or off during the darkest times of the day. This conditional nature of their operation kind of defeats the purpose of having street lights that are supposed to be doing their thing 100 percent of the time they are needed.

That is most felt during rainy and stormy days, when the general visibility that is already low doesn’t improve at night because the street lights are on dim mode due to not having been fully charged because of insufficient PV. Because they are solar-powered, there is no hope for the lights to become brighter later into the night, which is ironically when we need those lights to be on even more, both for safety and security reasons.

If you come to think of it, that is something that the LGUs evaluating the equipment should’ve tested for, as the issue could’ve been avoided if they order lights with the appropriate specs, such as bigger capacity PV and batteries, so there is enough reserve power to last through the nights even if the days are cloudy or stormy. That way, our cities remain relatively well-lit and therefore safer, from dusk till dawn, in weather that is fair or poor.

New technologies, if used properly, can make life more convenient and simple. Solar-powered street lights are a pretty basic shift that our local officials shouldn’t have to stumble over. After all, it is just basically a lighting fixture that doesn’t even need AI. However, if our public officials are already having trouble choosing the right street lights, imagine how much more difficult it is for them if they had to deal with more complicated systems, such as “smart” traffic lights, public transportation system overhauls, solid waste management technologies, and carbon neutral initiatives. Perhaps this is why most of them just stick to the simple stuff, like dole outs and pouring concrete, which doesn’t require much thinking but at the same time is still mega effective at achieving their public and personal goals.

Solar power street lights are just one of the many new technologies or improvements that can make life convenient in our towns and cities. There are many others just waiting to be tapped, ranging from simple to complex in terms of usage, application, and impact on society. This is where the quality, competency, and priorities of our leaders and their management teams come in, because if the ones we put into power are not particularly forward thinking, then our hometowns won’t really get to go anywhere as well.

With so many aspects of our lives in want and need of improvement, there is still so much to be done. If you come to think of it, street lights are actually just a minor concern. However, if a town or city can’t even get their street lights right, how can we expect to fare when it comes to more complex matters like governance, taxation, zoning, public transportation, education, climate change, sustainability, lowering emissions, health care, and dealing with an aging population, among so many other matters that our public officials are ultimately responsible for?

We need our officials to take things seriously, even just street lights, because simply going for the easiest set of solutions to our concerns and problems isn’t always the most sustainable way forward.*

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February 2025
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