TAMPA, Fla. — Hillsborough County is using an innovative way to cope with power outages when it comes to traffic.
- Hillsborough County using solar power to keep traffic lights working during an outage
- County has tested traffic signal beacons using solar
- Technology will eventually be at hundreds of intersections
- More Traffic news
Drivers are all too familiar with approaching a traffic light that is out and the ensuing chaos from it.
The county is looking at solar power as a way to fix that.
Power outages can be grueling as well as dangerous, be it after a hurricane or just on a routine afternoon. Especially when it comes to roadways and traffic signals.
The county's transportation department is addressing that with new technology aimed at making intersections safer.
It's called traffic signal beacons.
When the power goes out after a storm, traffic signals begin flashing yellow and red. The back-up batteries eventually get those lights back in action - but the batteries only last a few hours.
Using a solar panel, some wire and two boat batteries, the installed beacons kick in when the traffic signal batteries go dead.
And, powered by sunlight, they will run indefinitely until the power comes back on.
"In that situation, where all the ambient light, there is no light from these storefronts," said Robert Suess, with Hillsborough County Public Works. "Just the normal lighting that is being turned on by everything else, homes and everything else, the intersections become transparent they are so dark, so that's what these are they are an indication to bring attention to each approach that there is a traffic signal."
County workers have already installed test beacons at the Falkenburg Road and Queen Palm Drive intersection in Sabal Park.
Forty intersections are scheduled to have beacons installed by October.
Officials said all 316 county intersections should have beacons installed by the end of 2020.