Traffic light power consumption

[banana]

How much electricity does an average traffic consume over a 24 hour period?

[wildwood]

Including the relay, I presume about one kilowatt.
What really intrigues me is, why do you want to know?

[banana]

Since our local council have - in their esteemed wisdom - installed ,on a perfectly good roundabout-EIGHT sets plus THREE double pelican crossings .That makes 30 odd sets of lights . I have to do a complete circle of the roundabout to get home and so go through 5 seperate sets of lights.So ,I have plenty of time in the evenings to sit at these lights and ponder the workings of the world . Thats why.

[darth vader]

To do a complete circle you would end up where you started - but i do sympathise with your problem.

Darth Vader
Pedants Anonymous

[wildwood]

DV(PA:-) - Perhaps banana needs to turn right out of her/his place of employment but cannot do so because of the safety barrier, so forcing a journey along the road until the first opportunity for a U-turn, hence the need to do a complete circle at the roundabout.

[banana]

Nearly right wildwood. I have to travel along a dual carriage way -get to the roundabout - go completely round ,now facing to way i came - then go back along the dual carriage way to turn left into my street. Hence the five stops I come to as I turn

[holiana]

traffic lights cosist of a p.l.c controller and three lights. each lamp 100 watts of power and the p.l.c about 500watts. eight traffic lights would be 8x3=24 x 50=1,200 + 500(plc controller) = 1,700 watts. the local authorities should pay the electricity companies for the power used, which theydid until tenyears ago, when a thrifty minded vice chairman struck up a deal wit the local authorities whereby the road works in relation to the maintenance of the electrical supply system to cities is carried out by the LA in exchange for the supply of electricity for street lighting and traffic control systems, or traffic lights.

[orionone]

Normal incandecent traffic lights on average use 150 W of power per hour. The new LED traffic lights only use about 15 W of power per hour, and they are brighter. I would assume the reason for using less power is because LED's don't produce the heat that normal incandecnet bulbs do. In addition to those two benifits, LED lights never have to be replaced.