Hello to everyone.Have you noticed that in some streets lamps don't work ? I saw few times that in street near me it happened that new lamps which work nice had power problem which made them flickering on and off for whole night.Sometimes it happened that lamps work during daylight time.Yes in some streets power installation is terrible and needs to be repaired.Have you seen this problem in your street or town and what you think what can cause this ?

Damages to the line powering the street lights (on overhead system they have dedicated 1 or 2 phase wires, and use the same N as houses)

Problem with the photocell or time switch at the control cabinet

If there are no individual fuses or breakers in lanterns - A short in any one of them could take down the entire circuit (unless the main is so high current that the wiring for that one lantern will burn out faster)

Damages to the line powering the street lights (on overhead system they have dedicated 1 or 2 phase wires, and use the same N as houses)

Problem with the photocell or time switch at the control cabinet

If there are no individual fuses or breakers in lanterns - A short in any one of them could take down the entire circuit (unless the main is so high current that the wiring for that one lantern will burn out faster)

Lanterns don't have photocells on them and they don't have fuses built in.It was designed to be run as one high current circuit and no one thought to put fuse in each lantern.Lamps run on single phase @ 230V~.From power station street lighting wire gets on pole.

If the problems arise on overhead power lines with wires in windy weather sometimes a loose phase wire touches the wire underneath which might be a feeding wire for street lighting. Then you encounter blinking street lights.
It happened at least three times in my career as a line man but of course here in Switzerland we have had very much different electrical systems than in any other country.

In Finland there is no required indivitual fuses for lanterns, if the main fuse is max 35A. But this is valid only with overhead lines.

Every lantern is having its own fuse, mostly a 6A or sometimes 10A. The entire mostly 3phase lighting group is then fused with 15A up to 40A, depending how large this group is.

In Finland there is no required indivitual fuses for lanterns, if the main fuse is max 35A. But this is valid only with overhead lines.

Same in Serbia.

Every lantern is having its own fuse, mostly a 6A or sometimes 10A. The entire mostly 3phase lighting group is then fused with 15A up to 40A, depending how large this group is.

In Serbia most lamps don't have fuse inside them.On older ones I saw fuses.

If the problems arise on overhead power lines with wires in windy weather sometimes a loose phase wire touches the wire underneath which might be a feeding wire for street lighting. Then you encounter blinking street lights.
It happened at least three times in my career as a line man but of course here in Switzerland we have had very much different electrical systems than in any other country.

That happend few times and it was awesome to watch.

Undeniably, it is good to every lantern have own fuse, especially with HPS: https://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=4096&pos=5&pid=70653

In the USA the feeder wires inside the fixture usually burn through themselves (or the smaller component conductors)with a direct short unless the pole transformer is a lower KVA and trip (if it has one) secondary internal breaker. I have fused older parking lots with individual in-line fuses. Sometimes though it still tripped the internal store breaker simultaneously but the good news is when you re-energized the circuit there would be only one pole out and that was the one with the problem. Savings over trying to troubleshoot each pole by taking the conductor connectors loose at every pole and re-energizing to find out where the short was.
When you open a fixture door, always expect those conductors to be "bounced" together with the shaking of the opening door and short out in your face. 277/480 was the worse to do that and I am a strong proponent of fused fixtures/poles. .

Why HPS lanterns tend to melt down ?In my town in power stations transformers for streetlight have their on fuse which sometimes blow up.It rarely happens,only if there is huge storm and wires get shorted due to strong wind.I think in poles on squares,sidewalks and on parking lamps have built in fuse to prevent power outage in case of short circuit.

Wiring does deteriorate. If it is not protected adequately (C40 breaker being the lowest protection on a long circuit with 1.5 mm2, or worse nothing but the pole transformer secondary fuse..) the wiring can keep arcing and burning, and it will burn up from the place of the hort back to the power source along the cable

With a B10 or similar breaker in each lantern or pole you save much work and equipment damage if a short happens