 |
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||
Philips Introduces LED Luminaire IP Licensing Program |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
NIST Adds Two LED Lighting Standards
LIGHTimes Staff
July 1, 2008...While the flow of new LED and SSL specifications continues, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a US government-based organization, has offered two additional standards for solid state lighting in the United States. The NIST indicated that it is working with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to support its goal of developing and introducing solid-state lighting to reduce energy consumption for lighting by 50 percent by the year 2025. The DOE predicts that phasing in solid-state lighting over the next 20 years could save more than $280 billion in 2007 dollars. To that end, two standards that the NIST has announced have to do with LED testing procedures and measurements, and the correlated color temperatures of white LEDs.
The Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA), in cooperation with NIST, published a documentary standard LM-79, which describes the methods for testing solid-state lighting products for their light output (lumens), energy efficiency (what industry insiders call efficacy in lumens per watt) and chromaticity. NIST notes that the spec details the environmental conditions for the tests, how to operate and stabilize the LED sources for testing and methods of measurement and types of instruments to be used. This is apparently the first of the two standards that the NIST has helped develop.The standard is available from the IESNA.
The second standard to come from cooperation with the NIST comes specifically from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The ANSI published the C78.377-2008 standard, which specifies the recommended color ranges for solid-state lighting products using cool to warm white LEDs with various correlated color temperatures. "More standards are needed, and this will be the foundation for all solid-state lighting standards," commented NIST project leader, Yoshiro Ohno. The standard may be downloaded from ANSI's Web site. www.nema.org/stds/ANSI-ANSLG-C78-377.cfm.
NIST News Release
Lighting Science Group to Light Dome Theater Show in Macau Resort
SSLDesign News Staff
June 26, 2008...Lighting Science Group announced that it has been selected to be an LED lighting systems partner for a dome shaped theater in a Macau resort project called City of Dreams. The company reports that it will utilize its existing portfolio to illuminate and animate the screen inside the dome. The company will work closely with audio and visual suppliers to create a dynamic experience for visitors of the City of Dreams in Macau’s famous strip called Cotai. Additionally LSG will work with select lighting designer partners for the project, including Lightswitch of San Francisco. The production will reportedly combine high definition video, customized music, thousands of theatrical lights, and a variety of sensory effects to make a 10-minute visual extravaganza that will be a must-see attraction at the resort. SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Metropolitan Pavilion of New York City to Get LED Mood Lighting
SSLDesign News Staff
June 26, 2008...The award winning special events venue of New York City, Metropolitan Pavilion, announced plans to be more responsible to the environment.
Metropolitan Pavilion is located at 125 West 18th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues. It will be taking several steps to reduce its carbon footprint. Among those steps is to install LED lighting on one of its levels.
Scharff Weisberg Lighting, Metropolitan Pavilion’s exclusive light, sound and projection partner, and has been at the forefront of energy efficient lighting practices such as the use of lower-energy LED lighting fixtures in place of standard incandescent fixtures in their lighting rental packages. Scharff Weisberg installed LED mood lighting on the fifth floor of the pavilion.
SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Artemide Group Acquires Nord Light to Delve Further Into LED Lighting
SSLDesign News Staff
June 26, 2008...Artemide Group S.p.A. of Italy has acquired the majority share Nord Light S.p.A.
The Artemide Group, a high-end lighting company based in Milan, Italy, will gain the LED lighting expertise of Nord Light. The Artemide Group expects that the LED expertise of Nord Light will serve it well as it delves further into LEDs, which it describes as the “lighting of the future” because of their sustainability and flexibility in home and office applications. North Light apparently has a portfolio of products and has done many prominent LED lighting installations. Artemide Group says that it has sold decorative lamps for some time now that have taken advantage of LEDs.
"The acquisition of Nord Light perfectly fits into the strategy of ARTEMIDE for leadership in high-end lighting," said Luciano Iannuzzi, CEO of Artemide Group S.p.A. "Our position on the Architectural market is strengthened and our international competitiveness is increased in the widely expanding segment of LEDs. The acquisition of NORD LIGHT will also allow us to offer new top-level products and innovative lighting-technique solutions to professional customers, particularly in the hotel and retail sector."
SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Philips France to Light Office Entirely with LEDs
SSLDesign News Staff
June 26, 2008...A subsidiary of Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands, Royal Philips France, said that it will supply the LED lighting for the first office in the world to be entirely lit by LEDs.
The office, owned by Generali and located at 100 Champs-Elysées Avenue in Paris, will have functional office lighting and scene and atmospheric effects entirely done with LEDs. Generali commissioned Architect Anthony Béchu to design ‘an innovative window in the world of LEDs’.
Generali chose LEDs because of the extreme long lifetime of LEDs and the minimal maintenance costs.
Throughout the office space, 422 luminaires are integrated into a false ceiling with 600 x 600 grids. Philips says that each luminaire is powered by 16 or 12 high power LEDs of 2.6 W depending on their location in the office space. This provides an average of 300 lux everywhere and 500 lux on the working planes. Philips notes that part of the success of its LED lighting solutions has been come from the specially developed optics.
SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
EPA Outlines Light Engine Standards for Residential Lighting in Teleconference
SSLDesign News Staff
June 24, 2008...The EPA outlined the basics of its LED module standards in a teleconference today. The EPA spokesperson explained that full-fixture photometry is not practiced for indoor residential lighting. The EPA sited the example of a light source that is often put into a mica or alabaster fixture to produce the right ambiance in residential indoor lighting. The EPA spokesperson said that the organization wanted a set of lighting standards that was technology independent. The EPA indicated that the goal of its guidelines is to allow designers to (at least some extent) directly compare LED lighting to incandescent, fluorescent, or compact fluorescent light sources. For this reason the organization reportedly chose to create standards at the light engine level, not at the fixture level.
The EPA defined the light engine as a packaged LED, a driver (rather than a ballast), and an incorporated heat sink. The light engines would be required to have 50 lm/W or higher efficacy for an uncovered LED light engine or 40 lm/W or higher for a covered LED light engine.
SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Dialight Partners with Juno Lighting Group for Product Development
SSLDesign News Staff
June 19, 2008...Juno Lighting Group has partnered with Dialight Corp. of Farmingdale, New Jersey USA, to develop and launch a series of low profile linear LED lighting systems for the DanaLite brand. The DanaLite is a lighting solutions for architectural linear lighting applications and under-cabinet lighting. According to Dialight, this will be the first LED product from the Juno Light Group portfolio to be developed with the company.
Roy Burton, CEO of Dialight commented, "This is a very significant partnership for us. Juno Light Group is recognized as a leader in high quality and innovative lighting solutions for commercial and residential use. For us to work with them on one of the first LED products in their portfolio is an endorsement of Dialight's product quality and a sign that important new markets are ready for our LED lighting solutions."
SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Our news features are reported
by the SSL Design staff writers.
For submissions or content suggestions, you can contact us using
editor -at - solidstatelightingdesign.com
For more information and to reserve promotion space contact
Info7 -at - solidstatelightingdesign.com
or call +1 (512) 257-9888
|
Commentary & Perspectives...
Insights Into Energy Star for SSL - The Battle Continues
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
June 26, 2008...The battle as I see it is "simple versus valuable". In a June 24 web conference, we heard from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding their "technical amendment" to the Residential Lighting Fixture (RLF) specification 4.2. It's a simple way for a manufacturer to achieve Energy Star qualification for any fixture incorporating a qualified LED "light engine". If you need a catch up, you can read more about the reaction to this "double top secret" program in our last editorial. Overall, it didn't play really well when the EPA announced that it had effectively created a whole new technology specification without regard to any public process, review or implementation mandates (Rule book? What rule book?). We can only speculate on the EPA's motivation (which we did last time), and it is really hard to assign them even somewhat noble intentions. You don't secretly create industry specifications when you believe they are the best thing for the industry. Nonetheless, our objective is to encourage the EPA to do the right thing, and helping the industry and affected stakeholders understand the issues will allow the collective pressure to continue urging them towards what most of the industry sees as the correct path for retaining value in the Energy Star "brand".
In a nutshell, the EPA
came up with module-level criteria that would allow "LED light engines"
to be the Energy Star qualifying unit in residential applications. Their introduction
to the spec sums it up pretty well, "EPA has adopted test procedures that
are focused on the light source, not accounting for the optical effects of glass
or plastic diffusers which tend to be selected by consumers based on aesthetic
versus performance considerations. Accordingly, the adopted test procedure is
designed to evaluate the performance of LED light engines, which integrate an
LED package(s), driver and heat sink into a single unit. This approach is consistent
with the existing RLF program approach to testing light source and ballast combinations
(a.k.a. "platforms") in the context of fluorescent technology."
In their conference call, the EPA calls it a "technology neutral approach",
which would seem to make sense when comparing fairly equal technologies that do
fairly equal things. LEDs differ from CFLs at least as much as CFLs differ from
oil lamps (and likely even more).
It is important to acknowledge that the DOE's Energy Star approach, arrived at through the public and open process that is mandated by the governing program regulations, does add a burden to residential fixture manufacturers that they have not had in the past. Since Energy Star came along fairly late in the market adoption failure curve for CFL technology, it merely got to help clean up the mess rather than taking a role to help avert it. By the time there was an Energy Star RLF qualification, consumers were generally seeing that CFLs, in their different forms, provide them with a decent quality and predictable light source. At that point, if they get a "bad one" (slow to reach full light output or flickering), they simply take it back to their local superstore and don't buy that brand again. Here is the difference with SSL: Taking it back and choosing a different CFL "bulb" or fixture is a lot different than taking it back and not buying that technology again for 3, 5 or 10 years. At the current residential early-adoption stage, if there is a poorly performing fixture, it's the LED technology inside that will take the blame since it is considered "the unknown" in the equation.
The EPA RLF specification allows such a range of light engines, from dim to bright, and from warm to harsh white, that it seems unlikely that the consumer will be able to discern whether a particular light engine is potentially useful to them or not, much less being able to extend the thinking into the impact on the fixture would be. In their conference call, the EPA addressed the classic "CFL failure" by stating that, "We will actively protect the value of the Energy Star brand. If we see harsh, dim lights showing up through the program, we'll take actions to eliminate that." Obvious question: If you know that an inferior product solution can achieve certification under the spec, why not simply define the spec in a way that does not provide inferior combinations with the opportunity for certification?" Obvious answers: A) When you're in too much of a hurry, details like that can be overlooked or B) That would have led to the larger question of whether simply basing a fixture's Energy Star rating on the qualification of the light-source component even makes sense at this stage in the adoption curve.
As far as the stakeholders are concerned, there are two main camps. One would be the fixture manufacturers that appreciate the EPA's approach because it lowers their burden. DOE kept that in mind when they adopted a "qualifying family" approach, which basically means that a fixture manufacturer can qualify the lowest performing member of basic design, where a single housing has differing lenses, trim and baffles, and apply the qualification to all the other members of the family. There will be some testing by Energy Star to verify the rules are being met, and a violation will simply need to be corrected. You aren't tossed out of the program. How much does that testing add up to for a product family? Something on the order of $500 to $1500 for complete luminaire photometric and UL-conformant heat testing. Not exactly a piggybank breaker given the current value of the LED-based products.
The other stakeholders who oppose the EPA approach are those specifically within the solid state lighting specific portion of the lighting industry, who need SSL to succeed, and the utility companies. The utilities invest billions of ratepayer funds in support of energy efficiency programs. They also want to see SSL succeed sooner rather than later, and as a result, the recognition that confusing or possibly ineffective standards will slow things down is not escaping them. At least one utility behemoth, California-based Pacific Gas & Electric Company(PG&E) made a fairly clear statement against the current EPA approach. The statement was an element of a question asked by Mary Matteson Bryan, Lighting Portfolio Manager for Emerging Technologies at Pacific Gas and Electric Company (or PG&E) during the June 26 DOE conference Energy Star webcast where she asked, "With the release of RLF 4.2, PG&E is very concerned about potential marketplace confusion with two different SSL Energy Star specifications in place. In fact, until the current issues over Energy Star for SSL are resolved, PG&E does not plan to include products qualified under the EPA RLF 4.2 specification in our incentive programs. Has DOE been contacted by manufacturers or customers who share this concern and are confused?" The DOE answer was, "Yes, we have been contacted by a number of concerned stakeholders and are working to resolve this as quickly as possible, and at high levels of our two agencies." ... C'mon EPA, let's pull the spec back and re-do the process with stakeholder involvement.
Editorial Correction: A few weeks ago, in our coverage of a Philips Lumileds Lighting announcement regarding the adoption of their Luxeon Rebel products into several Philips LED module products, we did not make it fully clear that the LED modules were not a Philips Lumileds product. Philips Lumileds designs and manufactures LEDs, not lighting modules and their intention was to highlight what they see as the advantages of Philips Lumileds Luxeon products in modules of those types, regardless of whose modules those might be. Other Philips lighting companies and divisions are responsible for the design, production and sale of the variety of modules and luminaires. We apologize for any confusion that may have resulted from our original wording in that article.
Current PageTwo members may access extended content by logging in here
or Sign up for a SSL Design PageTwo membership now
Copyright 2007 by Veriphos Communications. LLC
Content under license