When we talk about public lighting, we may remember the old sodium vapor lamps. It was a solution with low luminous efficiency and that little by little is falling into disuse in favor of LED technology. LED street lights are the perfect replacement for those types of outdated street lights. Why? Well, because LED technology lasts longer, making maintenance cheaper, and its efficiency is better since it achieves the same lumens with less wattage.

But we already know about all the benefits of LED technology in public lighting. In order to better understand the new technologies used in public services, in this post we are going to introduce some key concepts of LED streetlights such as their parts and components.

What is an LED street light?

If we go to the UNE-EN 60588-1 standard (in which the general and particular requirements of the luminaires are collected), a public lighting luminaire is defined as the ” lighting device that distributes, filters or transforms the light emitted for one or several lamps and that includes all the necessary devices for the support, fixation and protection of lamps, (excluding the lamps themselves) and, if necessary, the auxiliary circuits in combination with the means of connection with the network of feeding» .

In this sense, the word ‘lamppost’ is used on a daily basis to define a public lighting luminaire. When we talk about led floodlights, we are saying that an LED lamp is used inside the luminaire to create the luminous flux.

What parts make up a street lighting luminaire?

The main parts of a street lighting luminaire are:

Casing or frame: it is the element in which the other components of the luminaire are integrated. It is usually made of resistant materials such as steel or aluminum.

Electrical equipment: which is made up of the lamp holder and the starting and operating elements of the lamp.

Reflectors: to avoid glare, these screens or surfaces are used that reflect the flow of the lamp in the desired direction.

Diffuser: as its name suggests, it is a casing to close the LED lamp, diffusing the light beam and thus avoiding glare.

Filter: this part is attached to the diffuser, so that it reduces the visual distortion caused by ultraviolet and infrared radiation and the polarization of light.

Luminaire: This is the bulb of the streetlight. The most obsolete are HID luminaires (from English, high intensity discharge) and the current ones are LED luminaires for public lighting, with better results in efficiency and energy savings.