ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Street lights voltages

Hello
I need to find out what are the most common voltage levels used in street and public lighting for the below lamp's types. Better if percentages of use are provided.
M.V: Mercury Vapor
H.P.S.V: High Pressure Sodium Vapor
M.H: Metallic Hallogenous ?

I have seen specs for 120,220,208,277 and 480VAC, which ones are the most popular?
Thanks in advance for your help.

The voltages you reference are all common for street and site lighting projects. "Available" voltage is the key to picking a fixture.

MH is 'Metal halide'

Welcome to the forums!
My area ia HPS @ 120 volts. (MORE LIKE 130!)

120 with HPS or MV here in Virginia.

BTW, local POCO (PSE&G) is replacing the MH street lights with new induction fixtures. 150 watt induction replacement for 400 & 250 watt MH.

I hate to say this .. but if you have to ask - stay away from street lights!

I say this because many streetlights are wires like airport runway lights, with a unique transformer and wiring arrangement; the usual 'volts and amps' rules don't really apply.

I agree with Reno...watch yourself.

I've seen so many oddball voltages with streetlighting that it falls into the category of "if you have to ask, don't do it."

They can be run with anything from 120V on up. The last set of runway lights that I ran across were 2300V.

Thank you all. I have a product that works at 230/240VAC and i need to know if 277VAC is very popular or 480 or 120 then ask the engineering team in Europe to modify the product. For what I have seen in other places seems that 277 is common as well as 120. not sure about 480.

I think it depends on what is handy on the pole. Lights around residential areas seems to be 120, simply tapped off of a convenient secondary.

I can't speak to public street lights...

But I've put up a fair number of parking lot lights.

480, 277 and 208 are by far the most popular voltages used in a commercial setting.

CWA are common as dust. Many are multi-tap so as to handle even 240 and 120. ( Constant Wattage Autoformers )

Public street lights involve much greater distances and may use medium voltages for distribution for that reason. Further, tapping transformers may be SERIES WIRED across the medium voltage circuit -- which then tends to be a RING CIRCUIT.

The above approach is used for runway landing lights. It assures pilots that each and every light -- regardless of location -- taps the exact same amount of medium voltage energy. ( Typically 5,000 VAC )

[ Imagine a stack of Current Transformers all on one 5,000 V conductor. Each would have the same draw/ amperage and voltage imposed because they'd all experience the same field intensity. That's how runways are illuminated.]

Conventional circuits end up faking out the pilots depth perception because they'd have different luminosities based upon how far they were from the distribution node.