The Beijing Capital Highway Development Company is in charge of all expressways in Beijing. They installed AmpLight in 2008 at Ring Road 3 in order to achieve energy savings through streetlight dimming.

With GridLight, the customer created a modular solution that matched their requirements perfectly. Project Manager Wang Desen states: “We chose to work with Amplex because of their profile as an international brand within the lighting industry, and the solution’s excellent functionalities and advanced technology”.

The BCHDC has achieved energy savings of 28% through dimming alone. Other advantages include:

• Precise, optimised and centralised control
• Reduced maintenance costs

Installation

GridLight was installed in summer 2008 and controls 4,476 streetlights with an additional 1,000 poles expected in 2009.

Upon installing the hardware from the Amplex Module System (AMS), the BCHDC was able to centrally control the streetlights from a server. Also, their streetlights are now fully dimmable and has the ability to perform remote readings of power meters in the control cabinets. This provides full awareness of the energy consumed.

Operation

A centrally located photocell ensures that the streetlights are turned on at twilight. The lights are fully on until the end of peak traffic hours. The lights are then dimmed throughout the night until they are fully turned on when morning traffic starts.

The web-based user interface, AmpWeb, resembles a regular website and gives the customer an instant and accurate overview of all GridLight installations. With AmpWeb, the customer can extract reports and get functional overviews of the control cabinets, simplifying the process of detecting faults or power leaks. The result is lowered maintenance costs and increased energy savings. In case an accident occurs during dimming, the operator can instantly turn the streetlights fully on.