The Ministry of Public Works and Transport through the General Direction of Traffic Engineering, makes progress in the process to intervene another 76 traffic lights with photovoltaic systems, so that the systems work with solar power.
One million dollars were allocated by COSEVI for the execution of these works.
According to the engineer Diego Rugama, the forecast is that as early as December these systems will be running with clean energy so that 235 intersections are completed in San José. That is, 50% of all the devices that make up the Centralized System of Traffic Lights (474 in total) located in San José, Alajuela, Heredia and Cartago.
The official clarified that in the coming days the Board of Directors of COSEVI would review the project that would later be sent to the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic for endorsement. Therefore, authorities anticipate they’ll have the order to start between July and August.
On this occasion, the works have an execution time of 190 days, so in December they estimate to conclude this third phase of the project. The works would be in charge of the Enterprise System RC SA, the same that has developed the two previous stages.
Rugama said that in addition to the solar panel, lithium batteries are placed in the systems to store energy so that the devices operate on average 14 hours in the absence of sunlight. If for some reason this is not enough, it automatically connects to the electrical system so operations will never be interrupted.
MOPT-Cosevi estimate that in 2022 all the traffic lights that make up the Centralized System run on sun power.