How do mains connected streetlights get powered?

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treez

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If you have a line of 30 mains supplied streetlights in a UK/European city, then how do they power them? Do they wire the generator to the first streetlight, and then just “daisy-chain” the wire to the next streetlight, and so on?
As such, there would be significant cable voltage drop by the time you get to the 30th streetlight. How do they wire/power these streetlights?
Do they set the generator to 285VAC so as to compensate for the expected cable voltage drop?
 

Most are daisy chained using a relatively small diameter armored cable. I'm not sure what the maximum chain length is but I would guess it depends on the economy of wiring timer or light level switches. Even low or high pressure sodium lamps are low(ish) power, I think the maximum is around 60W and with inductive ballasts so the one at the end of the chain may be a little dimmer than the first but nobody would notice given how far apart they are. Major traffic junctions with high floodlighting can use several hundred Watts but are generally grouped close together.

Brian.
 

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