By Nathan Prewett, For the Tribune
PINSON – A long-awaited solar lighting project has been completed at the football field parking lot of the Pinson Sports Complex and it is one of comparatively few like this in the state of Alabama.
Campbell’s Asphalt Paving poured the bases of the poles topped with solar panels provided by the French company Fonroche Lighting for $36,000. The project was overseen by Operations Director Eric Winfrey, who said that he attended a national conference last year where he met representatives of Fonroche.
“I got all this information and we picked up a lot of great ideas from the conference that I went to last year — the national conference — and now they want to use us because we are their first Southern installation,” he said during a meeting of the Pinson City Council on Aug. 3.
One of the advantages of solar lighting is the energy it saves. The panels provided by Fonroche have different phases of lighting during the night. Winfrey explained that when night falls they come on at full capacity and then go to 30% capacity before going back to full capacity an hour before sunrise.
“I think there’s a lot of applications for this,” he said. “And the technology that has come about in solar power is just – it’s amazing. It really is. And I think we just got a little taste of it.”
Winfrey said that operating costs were also saved, as well as installation costs. Specifically, an estimated $60,000 was saved with the cost of installation, he said. About $5,000 per year in operating costs have been saved as well.
“It really saved us a lot of time and money in the long run,” he said.
Other cities are catching on with solar lighting. Winfrey mentioned that the Center Point Fire District – which also serves Pinson – has enlisted the same company to install this technology at their recently established training facility.
With the lighting thriving off of the energy provided by the sun, the new technology is more environmentally sound than the previous traditional lighting.
“This is solar energy,” he said. “So were’ not emitting any of the stuff that destroys the ozone and things like that, and we’re not taking away from the grid as well. A lot of solar or a lot of battery-operated cars — you’re putting stress on the grid because they have to produce more to supply them. Well, we’re totally off the grid for this.”
With the benefit of saving operating costs, this could spring up more around the municipality and elsewhere.
“Technology has come so far,” Winfrey said. “This is something we really should look into because, along with the renewable energy, there’s the cost savings initially. It’s the smartest thing we could do.”
Nathan Prewett can be reached at nthomasp6@gmail.com.