Streetlights should be provided by Government run companies (in some countries)

Hi,
OK here’s the deal…….you are a small lighting company and you want to buy in some (20,000) streetlight LED drivers to put in your new streetlights.
(I am speaking of UK here, but this applies to many other countries that don’t really make their own stuff, or those that want to start making much more of their own, (eg, USA, UK, Australia, etc etc etc)

You can’t possibly entertain the thought of designing a LED driver yourself as the big multinational electronics corporations (who can buy components at far lower cost than you) have already got cheap drivers ready available off-the-shelf.
You do have the alternative of going to China and buying the whole streetlight from the Chinese, or just buying a cheap LED driver designed by some huge Chinese Power supply company.

However, there is one big snag……

None of the LED drivers that you want to buy are actually fixed priced……that is, you have to negotiate the price with the vendor. The vendor wants to rip off as much money from you as they can…
If you do not have engineering design level knowledge of a LED streetlight driver, then you are going to get ripped off…..because you simply will not understand the features of the prospective LED driver in order to use them as “haggling “ points.

For example, you cannot properly haggle over the fee with a Chinese LED driver design company if you don’t know how to design a LED driver yourself.
Also, you must be able to say to the vendor, that if they don’t knock the price down to £xxx, then you will just design one yourself instead…….and in order to make this look like a real threat, you need to have a stable of LED driver products that you have designed yourself……….in other words…… You need LED Driver design capability in order to buy a LED driver off-the-shelf.

…….The problem is, that if you are the sort of company that just buys in all your LED drivers, then you are not going to have the ability to design LED drivers….its a chicken and egg situation.
And if you are in a country like UK, where there are no tariffs to foreign imports, and your engineering fraternity has died off so that you cannot even find a LED driver designer in UK, then you are in big trouble……..

The only answer to this is that LED streetlight design must be taken over by the government, and they must undertake a program of LED driver design operations, so that the skill of LED driver design is “in-house”. Also, a surplus of LED driver designers must be trained up, in order that they may some day leave the government run company, and go and work for private LED streetlight companies, and ensure that they don’t have to pay much for their led drivers…….because otherwise the British taxpayer suffers from paying too much for the streetlights–No private company would do this….no private company would make enough investment to train up a large cohort of LED driver designers. –specially since they would be scared that the designers may end up working for their competitors in the same country….private companies are just too greedy and insecure….at least in UK they are.
This is why the operation must be government run
Do you agree?

Government getting so deeply involved in something as trivial and specific as street lights? C'mon. Get real.

Maybe because you design electric car chargers or street lights, it seems like the whole world revolves around them. It doesn't. The argument for government running operations to keep skills and facilities domestic for things like food production, energy production, steel production, industrial manufacturing, and even military hardware might not even hold up. And those are critical industries that often involve national security. But you're sitting here worried about LED street lights and electric car chargers.

Seriously, what are you trying to accomplish with all these posts?

streetlight electronics is simple, so a gov run company would train up loads of power supply people, who could then go into the wider economy and contribute there.
Specifically, in UK at least something needs to be done because of this....
**broken link removed**

its probably useful for other countries too. The States for just one example, seems keen on getting back indigenous industry

Flyback said:

streetlight electronics is simple, so a gov run company would train up loads of power supply people, who could then go into the wider economy and contribute there.
Specifically, in UK at least something needs to be done because of this....
**broken link removed**

its probably useful for other countries too. The States for just one example, seems keen on getting back indigenous industry

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That article is talking about the industries I just mentioned. National economies don't live or die on LED street lights.

As for the specific mention of chinese nuclear power plants...I was actually involved on a bunch of them of those a few years back. China doesn't know how to build them either. They were adapting old french plans and scrounged for foreign from no country in particular in order to pull it off. No country in the world has experience building them because none have been built for so long.

yes but streetlights are a good simple place to start training people up, and creat jobs in electronics, which in uk at least dont exist that much right now.
Its likely that people will be able to build sucessful streetlights, because they are simple, so the industry will at least pay for itself.....and lighting is a widespread function.

So, instead of 'How many xxxs does it take to change a light bulb?' we now have 'How many LED building experts does it take to design all the LED drivers the country will ever need in the foreseeable future?'. I suspect the answer is 'Very few'. Hardly worth setting up a government department involving committees, pen-pushers, fat slaries and red tape just for that!

thanks, it wouldnt need a gov dept etc etc ...just a company with a manager and some engineers...and trainee engineers

Flyback said:

it wouldnt need a gov dept

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So, a "gov run company" (post #3) is different?

Flyback said:

thanks, it wouldnt need a gov dept etc etc ...just a company with a manager and some engineers...and trainee engineers

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In other words...government sponsorship of street lighting companies. It sounds ridiculous when phrased like that. And what'dya know? Distributing that money still requires a paperwork and government department.

Either that or you want a DARPA for street lighting. Which sounds even worse.

In UK, the government spews money all over private small electronics companys anyway....thats just throwing money away...it needs to be done transparently......a government run company, for the purpose of the UK.....the Germans and in USA dont need this, because the USA and German people have a comraderie with each other which Brits dont have.....but we may do when we realise where we are going..
**broken link removed**
we are going down...big time.

Flyback said:

In UK, the government spews money all over private small electronics companys

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So you want a job and the entire country needs to be taxed to get you a job.

I believe the government should stay out of most things. Given the fact that the government does such a bang up job of what they do now.
Defense, roads, education, things like that .... but street lights? No. Stay with free market. This sounds like another "I need government money" speech.

No. Stay with free market.

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Thanks, in UK, that means buy from China or buy drivers from Mainland Europe.
If a country neglects to do its own stuff, that country will end up in ruin.
There is one lighting company in UK which made all its streetlight drivers from an enornous government grant.
The grant is gone now, and because the operation didn’t train up enough engineers, there’s now a shortage of lighting design engineers again (power supply engineers).
In the US and Germany, most large private companies are happy to train up loads of engineers and have them leave them and go work for other companies, even their competitors......that doesnt happen in UK.....we dont help each other......quite the opposite, we try to destroy each other....in the name of business competitiveness.

Flyback said:

enornous government grant

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Maybe I don't understand:
You are not happy about what the government did but you want more of that.

Flyback said:

In the US and Germany, most large private companies are happy to train up loads of engineers and have them leave them and go work for other companies, even their competitors

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I don't know about Germany but you obviously have NO idea what is going on in the US here.

dknguyen said:

I don't know about Germany but you obviously have NO idea what is going on in the US here.

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He's no idea what's going on anywhere

Maybe I don't understand:
You are not happy about what the government did but you want more of that.

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Yes, but instead of giving the money to a selfish private company, it would be a government run company....a company who in its remit, is required to train up loads of power supply engineers for use in UK (or whichever country).

Flyback said:

Yes, but instead of giving the money to a selfish private company, it would be a government run company....a company who in its remit, is required to train up loads of power supply engineers for use in UK (or whichever country).

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Look man, I lean a more towards more carefully and judiciously applied socialism than hardcore capitalism, but what you want is crossing the line. You're emphasizing all the evils of private companies and ignoring all the evils of governments for the sake of a non-essential, non-lucrative, niche industry which you are somehow convinced will help save the country's economy.

Flyback said:

Yes, but instead of giving the money to a selfish private company, it would be a government run company....a company who in its remit, is required to train up loads of power supply engineers for use in UK (or whichever country).

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Why would you imagine you'd need 'loads'?, it's only a street light - a couple of engineers (or even one) would be all you'd need. However, as has been proved over and over again, the government running anything makes a complete mess of it, and is a VERY expensive and inefficient way to do anything.

Your entire premise is incorrect anyway, the Chinese certainly don't 'hold countries hostage' over prices, they compete with each other to give the best prices and undercut each other.

Perhaps if you can't build a cost-competitive LED streetlight given any real or imagined constraints, it's time to focus elsewhere.

yes true, but the principle is that the government run company would train up loads of engineers....this would be done in other areas of engineering aswell......power supply is a good place to start though because virtually every electrical product needs a power supply...and streetlights are bought by governments (councils) so seems a good place to start.