Solar-powered street light company Streetleaf expands to Jacksonville with Diamond Springs project (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — In the face of changing policy and torrential storms, a company developing budding solar technology for street lights is marking its spot in Jacksonville.
Streetleaf, a Tampa-based solar-powered street light provider, is expanding its footprint to Jacksonville in a partnership with Metro Development Group for the Diamond Springs Community being developed in West Jacksonville, CEO Liam Ryan told the Jacksonville Business Journal.
The solar-powered street lights developed by the company are slated to brighten the streets of the neighborhood, which features a man-made lagoon open to the public.
“We’re laser focused on converting the world to using solar and battery powered street lights versus kind of like old school, grid-tied street lights,” Ryan said. “So we actually kind of partner with communities, cities, utilities and help them install, maintain and manage solar street lights.”
ithin Diamond Springs, Streetleaf has installed 82 solar-powered lights and plans to ultimately bring 200 to the community. The streetlights are not manufactured in Tampa yet, a spokesperson said, but research and development, quality and warehousing take place in the city.
Holding a battery that can last five days, according to its website, the products are fulfilling a niche providing solar-powered lighting in areas off the beaten path and prone to storms and power outages.
The products offer more savings for installing infrastructure, Ryan said, slashing upfront costs to developers, utilities and municipalities.
Typical street light infrastructure requires digging a hole, running wiring and a conduit, while the Streetleaf lights are installed without a connection to a power grid.
“You just plop the lights in the ground, and you have a solar panel and battery and the lights working that night,” Ryan said. “Then on top of just cost and speed, all these systems are fully grid-independent. So if the grid is down, hey, there’s a hurricane that comes through and the community is dark for a week, the street lights will still stay on.”
Additionally, reducing the cost of the build can leave residents with more money in their pockets.
“… at the end of the day, the residents, the home buyers, the ones who are actually paying for everything, whether upfront or over time, are the ones who benefit from a superior product,” Ryan said.
The technology was born out of filling the gap for streetlights at a Pasco County project, where the neighborhood was empty of streetlights due to infrastructure issues.
“The gist is that this was going to be a 5,000-home project, and the local rural utility was kind of having some issues with some of the other aspects of the project and didn’t install streetlights for the first phase,” Ryan said. “So we weren’t even called Streetleaf at that point. We came in and deployed off-grid solar street lights back in 2019, 2020, just for this first lagoon community called Epperson, and then from there, other development companies, other homebuilders had similar issues and saw the benefits of using our product.”
The splashy lagoon neighborhoods are only a foot in the door for Jacksonville; however, Ryan aims to make the solar streetlights more ubiquitous throughout the city.
“… we’re trying to take over the world and make every street light solar and battery powered.”
Despite a changing regulatory landscape around solar infrastructure with federal leaders revoking tax credits and costs surging under tariffs, Ryan remains optimistic about Streetleaf’s products because of the hefty price tag for installing traditional infrastructure.
“You hear solar and you immediately think, hey, all these tax credits are disappearing, and there’s been a lot of tariffs,” Ryan said. “… but street lights are one of these unique situations that using solar and battery technology today is more cost effective than what’s been done for the last 100 years.”