Street lighting that using light and wind power generation is expected to apply in Guangzhou. In the meeting of application and popularization of Complementary power supply system held in South of China Polytechnic University, it’s reported that the first street in which the street lights without pull cable transmission is expected to appear in Guangzhou Bio-Island. At present, a lighting proposal is under working for bio-island road, and the related dept has submitted lighting proposal using complementary system with solar and wind power generation on the street lights to cover the street lighting demand.

In 2008, Guangzhou Municipal Engineering Design Institute has submitted complementary system design to the headquarters of bio-island. Under this program, on 8 km of surround highway, there will be 33 street lamps per km (unilateral). Compare with previous design, the difference of this design is to use complementary street lights with taking reference of Shanghai Chongming Island's ecological village street demonstration projects. The electricity produced by solar power and wind power generation facilities, will be storaged in the batteries then supplied to street lamps at night.

Solar and wind power are complementary to each other in timing and geography. It has b sunlight during the day while the wind is very small; It’s weak sunlight at night while the wind strengthened. Sunny days have b beam and rainy days have b wind energy. So this complementarity has great advantage. we can set up an independent power supply system for the street lamps. It is reported that in Ningbo, Changsha, Shenzhen and some other cities this kind of street lamp has been applied, realizing good lighting and energy-saving effectiveness.

In March, 2009, the authorities have tested a few pieces model lamps in bio-island, but the brightness and working time were not enough. After March 15th, they tested another three demonstration lights and achieved good performance. According to reports, in accordance with national regulations for road lighting, street lamp brightness of the ground can’t be less than 15 flux, but these 3 demonstration lights respectively achieved 25, 21.8, 17.6flux, and the working time were more than 6 hours, and they can even work till morning after improvement.

Although the initial investment for such street that lamps without an external power supply is larger, it’s about RMB25 thousand, but experts say, as these lights don’t use high-voltage power supply, its lifespan is longer. The life can be up to 15 years. 5 years later, the electricity cost saved from it is enough to cover the gap with the investment for traditional street lights, then the benefits for the rest of 10 years of "zero power consumption," will be raised accordingly. Moreover, because there is no transmission lines, the maintenance costs is lower than those for traditional lights. In another aspect, as there’s no cable, copper rate is less than that of traditional lamp, coupled with a high lamppost, the possibility of theft be lowered as well.

At present, this bio-island has been listed as a demonstration base of circular economy and energy conservation is a major highlight of this biological island. if the program is finalized, it will be the fist street using complementary system in Guangzhou. The Nansha fast lane, the South fast-Link Longdong section and several highways are planning to use complement system to be the camera charging system at the same time, the cost is lower than traditional charging system due to savings in the cost of pulling wires.

But experts also said that not all the street, road sections are suitable to install this solar-wind power street lights. Where the street or residential area have high buildings block the sun and wind are not suitable to install this power system. While Guangzhou Bio-Island and Nansha have large open space and they are near the coast so it’s very good to do this design.