Hmm... the invention is a great idea, but setting it up in parks and trails I'm not entirely sure about, because although people travel and camp there, animals permanently live there. Could this light being on every night affect that wildlife? Just an idea, though, but I think it would be really great to put in towns as well.

I cant believe it!!! I swear i had this idea last year!!! dammit i hate being a student!!! damn Eu patents they are sooooo expensive...and its not the first time it happens something like this!!!!
lol

Finally, a solution for what has been the major shortcoming of traditional streetlights, all these years: Not enough moving parts.

I've seen them at the rest areas on Vancouver island. Pretty cool.

Ok, they they save 140 dollars per year in electricity, how much more do they cost up front?

Also, since they aren't wired into the grid, they can be stolen without fear of electrocution. Much cooler than street signs for the young hooligans to make off with.

Actually they were created by a Japanese company (Panasonic). The Canadian company is just marketing them.

We looked at this product over a year ago. It is quite expensive. If you have a situation where wiring a traditional street light it is expensive this might make financial sense. But if you are just looking for renewable energy - you could install a fair size PV array or larger wind turvine for the price of this product.

What a great idea - the upfront cost, I would imagine would be less than that of a conventional lamp post in terms of carbon foot print as no trenches, wiring etc. and given the lack of wiring and trenches the financial cost would also be less.

In 32 years I have never see or heard of anyone steeling a lamppost. I haven't seen any on ebay either. Nothing to do with electricity supply more to do with the convenience of steeling a lamppost.

We need more ideas like this!

The downside I see to these types of designed is the amount of materials to make them, you have the solar panel, generator and batteries and the batteries will need replaced every so often and even though they can be recycled it still takes energy to recycle them. I'd rather see a large bank of solar and a large wind generator powering one large bank of batteries rather than hundreds of smaller batteries. I'm starting to see street signs like that around here where every single one has its own battery.

Regarding the installation cost, not having to trench and wire them in remote locations offsets a significant portion of the cost. At present one area where PV is cost effective is in remote lighting. And "remote" means the far end of the carpark, not a wilderness area.

Vandalism and theft shouldn't be more of a concern than with any other public space amenity. Moving parts are a real concern, but we'll have to see how they perform.

I'm trying to figure out if I can use the device, sans light, to power remote pumps for an artificial pond in a project I'm working on.

NASA is ordering their first ever Solar LED Street Light.
This light is Made In the USA Made with USA made Led's.
http://acemtf.com/USASolar/LED_Street_lights/LED%20Street%20Lights%20for%20Department%20of%20Transportation.pdf

I am curently researching solar energy and can see from data and experiments that the solar panel is a device that holds a whole load of embodied energy and returns little if anything feasible. Mfrs even state that output is high in the first few months of operation so initially it looks swell. I can see the wind turbine add-on is a plus but now face reality and make it cheap enough and durable enough to do what it say it can do over the time it takes to break even. Dream on - Lets see the scientists conjour up another environmental 'patch' but this time keep away the greedy marketers long enough to allow them to get it right.