Streetlights have 100,000-hour life
A new generation of sustainable streetlights with a rated life of 100,000 hours and an efficacy of over 200 lumens per Watt has been unveiled by major Chinese brand Sansi.
The company, a pioneer of ceramic-on-chip LED modules, says its units can maintain 85 per cent luminous flux over its life.
With daily operation of around 10 to 11 hours, the lights will last 24 years, says the firm.
The lifetime claims have been certified by China’s National Lighting Quality Inspection Center.
Sansi says it has now perfected ceramic-on-chip technology, which reduces thermal patches by eliminating traditional printed-circuit-board layers and delivers a 30 per cent faster heat dissipation.
It says the street lights are the culmination of a huge development programme which included 100 ceramic structural designs, 500 material formula refinements, 2,000 firing process trials, 10,000 optical simulations and 40,000 performance tests. The firm says its inventions are protected by global patents.
‘Ceramic-on-chip technology represents a fundamental reengineering of LED architecture,’ said Sansi marketing director Song told the Circular Lighting Report. ‘By directly bonding chips to ceramic substrates, we achieve an unmatched efficiency and lifespan’
The C0820-QR series, as it’s known, has a system efficacy of 214.7 lm/W. Sansi says this, combined with precision optics, delivers 67.4 per cent energy savings compared to conventional HID street lights. It says it’s the equivalent of the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by about 160 trees in one day. It said that maintenance costs are ‘near zero’.
The ceramic-chip LED lights have been installed in a number of test sites. These include the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, Beijing-Xiong’an Smart Highway, and the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link.
Sansi says the development was made possible by the company’s ambitious internal research and development programme. This comprises no fewer than 16 separate research institutes, including specialist laboratories for materials science, integrated-chip microelectronics, optics and industrial design. In total the company has 500 researchers who have created 880 patents.
• Learn more about sustainable lighting at Circular Lighting Live 2025, Recolight’s flagship conference and exhibition, which takes place on Thursday 25 September 2025 at the Minster Building in the City of London. Free to specifiers, Circular Lighting Live 2025 will feature leading experts, specifiers and policy makers who will share their insights into forthcoming standards and legislation, emerging technologies and new business models. More info: www.circularlighting.live
Picture: Filip Mroz via UnSplash 2025
