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GE To Explore Spin-Off of Appliance Business
July 15, 2008...GE, a diversified technology, financial, and media services company mostly known for its lighting and appliance business, announced that the company was looking into various strategic reorganization plans including a possible spin-off its appliance business division into a new company. One part of the company’s appliance division is its enormous lighting business. Thomas Edison founded the company after inventing the incandescent bulb in 1879. The company’s announced investigation into a possible spin-off comes about a year and a half after the U.S. government passed legislation that would ban the sale of inefficient incandescent light bulbs in the United States by 2012. SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Acclaim Lighting Introduces “HIP” Wall Wash Solution
SSLDesign News Staff
July 11, 2008...Acclaim Lighting of Los Angeles, California USA, has introduced an exterior wall wash luminaire named the X-Bar HIP. The company indicates that it is called the Hip because it is a high performance and IP-rated fixture. The company says the luminaire is “Hip” to lighting users’ many needs. The X-Bar Hip comes in both AC and DC models in RGB (red, green, and blue color-mixing), CW (cool white), or WW (warm white).
Every version of the X-Bar HIP is equipped with 36 high-power 1W Luxeon LEDs from Philips Lumileds. The LEDs work with its standard lenticular lens system to produce a 10 foot x 40 foot beam angle. According to the company, this means you can set this narrow bar right up against the wall, and it will evenly light an area as large as a 10’ x 40’. This capability makes it ideal for long throw wall wash applications. The company notes that all versions of the X-Bar HIP are DMX compatible and feature built-in programs and dimming.
The AC version reportedly comes with its own internal power supply and can take direct power/data. Its linkable up to 20 units in a line from 100-120v or 40 units on 208-240v, and it can be controlled via DMX to create customized lighting programs. It also offers Acclaim’s XBR1 set-up controller which gives access to its built-in programs. The company boasts that the rugged and durable, the X-Bar HIP AC is rated at a hardy IP 65, so it can withstand dust and precipitation. The company says that its IP rating makes it the perfect lighting solution for large building exteriors, as well as interior wall lengths.
Acclaim says that like its AC counterpart, the DC version of the X-Bar Hip is also outdoor-worthy with an IP 65 rating. Additionally, the DC model is available in an even tougher IP 68 marine-grade finish that’s ideal for underwater and seaside applications.
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Philips and Dutch Government Partner to Light Up Sub-Saharan Africa
SSLDesign News Staff
July 10, 2008...Royal Philips Electronics of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, reported that it has signed a partnership with the Dutch government to develop and produce efficient and rugged solar powered lighting solutions for Sub-Saharan Africa. Under the terms of the agreement the Dutch government will provide funding for awareness creation, entrepreneurial training, as well as support for finance mechanisms and project management. Philips will invest in new product development for African people and households deprived of access to modern energy services. The goal of the new public/private partnership (PPP) agreement is to provide affordable, appropriate and sustainable energy solutions and services by 2015 for 10 million people in 14 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Philips notes that these lighting solutions will involve advanced LED lighting solutions.
Gerard Kleisterlee, President and CEO of Philips stated in a recent speech, “The rural lighting markets for low income people in developing countries, is not very well known or explored. It is essential that governments and international organizations such as the NGO’s, World Bank, and various companies get together in a network to work out appropriate business models.”
Philips points out that its estimated that about a quarter of a billion (yes billion) Africans do not have electricity. Without electricity, sundown in the area that happens about 6:30pm to 7:00pm brings a stop to all activity because of the lack of lighting solutions.
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Nexxus Lighting Illuminates Georgia Art Installation
SSLDesign News Staff
July 10, 2008... The project's goal was to cover the unsightly substation equipment that spread over several acres. The project consists of a 500-foot-long screen comprised of 75 20-foot-high, 3-section panels.
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Nexxus Lighting, an LED luminaire maker of Charlotte, North Carolina USA, announced that its Advanced Lighting Systems business unit has completed a lighting project for the Georgia Power Wrap. The “Power Wrap” is an art installation created for The Georgia Institute of Technology by Amy Landesberg Architects with students from the Power Wrap Workshop, College of Architecture and the Georgia Institute of Technology. The installation received an American Institute of Architects Merit Award, and earlier this month it won an Award of Excellence from the Atlanta Urban Design Commission.
Philips LED Luminaires Help Showcase Mayan Archeological Site
SSLDesign News Staff
July 10, 2008...In a truly unique combination of ancient architecture and modern, state-of-the art technology, Philips has provided LED-based lighting solutions for the archeological site of Edzna, in the Mexican state of Campeche. The lighting allows colorful light shows that bring a new form of art to the monumental architecture at the site. Another added benefit to using Philips LED fixtures is that they do not radiate heat or UV rays; which could damage the temple's exterior over time.
The most remarkable building at the site is reportedly the main temple called Pirámide de los Cinco Pisos or the Pyramid of the Five Floors.
The temple is built on a platform 131 feet high ( 40 m ). It offers views for visitors of the surrounding countryside. According to Philips, another amazing view occurs on Friday and Saturday evenings, when a multimedia spectacle called the "Light of the Itzáes" occurs. Philips says that the event enhances the beauty of the imposing archeological site and brings new life to the ceremonial center that flourished between the years 600 and 900 A .D.
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Commentary & Perspectives...
Comments to EPA Allowed - Keep it to 'Rescind Energy Star RLF 4.2'
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
July 10, 2008...Here's an innovative approach: 1) Generate a solid state lighting light fixture specification behind closed doors; 2) Make a surprise announcement rolling out the spec with immediate effectiveness; 3) Defend the spec as necessary and legitimate in the face of an industry uproar that it is poorly done, damaging to the industry, and was illegitimately undertaken; 4) Announce that you're open to comments about your spec in hopes that you can keep the spec in place and pretend it is now an open discussion; 5) Continue to not return phone calls to the press. The last step is most important, of course.
On July 9, the EPA issued its rather lame version of a justification for its continuation of bad decision making in a letter from its Lighting Program Office. As the letter states, "Since the release of RLF Version 4.2, EPA has received a number of comments and questions related to whether and how the specification will ensure only high quality LED products will qualify for the ENERGY STAR. With this letter, EPA would like to summarize the steps it has taken to address important quality issues and to provide stakeholders an opportunity to comment on the requirements." It then goes on to insist it is terribly concerned about the quality of products that qualify for the program and that the new specification depends on well-vetted and accepted test procedures which are well-vetted and tested because they say so.
The most amazing thing was the incredibly selective hearing that must have been applied for them to believe that the comments they have received are simply centered on whether the spec will assure high quality products. I guess the requests to rescind the surprise specification, including complaint filed by the Solid State Lighting International Trade Association to the office of the Office of the Inspector General, is about the quality? Or the refusal to support RLF 4.2 by the Consortium for Energy Efficiency is just about how quality is handled in the new spec. (In 2007, CEE members’ budgets represented over 90 percent of the total $3.7 billion in US state- and Canadian province-authorized energy efficiency incentive program budgets). They put together a good letter, although it did take a little more "politically correct tone" than I would personally wished that they had (read it here). According to our sources, the cited CEE Lighting Committee came out with a simple request, "Suspend RLF 4.2 until it can be considered correctly." It appears that there was some additional massaging to help make the point a little less directly at the EPA, and more towards the Energy Star SSL program in general. The letter did this by raising some of the other known issues that are slated to be addressed, including the effectiveness of IESNA LM-80 as a precise predictor of 70% lumen depreciation data, as well their suggestion of the need for a more precise definition of "directionality". It doesn't miss on the key point that, "In the near term, CEE believes that luminaire efficacy should be used for all SSL light fixtures." Hopefully no one reads the letter and gets the impression that DOE and EPA have together created a specification mess that needs to be fixed when the only mess is the EPA's doing with RLF 4.2.
You've got to read the EPA letter to believe it. Keep in mind that this is the same group that insisted the specification did not need to be created in an open forum, with stakeholder input, because it introduced all new language and specification components rather than "changing wording of an existing specification." They apparently contend that the EPA only needs to adhere to a public process after they've created a new "final specification with immediate effectivity." Thanks for this new open approach (yeah, right).
So, if we fall for this approach, how open will the process be? As they state in the July 9 letter, "To address concerns about quality issues, EPA is offering the opportunity for interested parties to comment on the technical amendment of the RLF specification. To this end, EPA will be accepting written comment until August 25, 2008. Please send comments to RLF@icfi.com. After this period, EPA will compile any comments received and consider the appropriateness and timing of any suggested changes." Seems like that's pretty much, "We'll do what we want, after giving it as much careful consideration as we did in creating the secret specification in the first place." If the EPA was serious about considering the comments, they would rescind the so called "technical amendment" and redo the process by publishing a draft, asking for comments, publishing the comments, working up a new draft based on the comments, publishing it, asking for comments on the draft until they get a real consensus document. Oh, and then it should be published with a minimum effectivity notification period of 270 days, as required by the Federal regulations that apply to Energy Star programs (42 U.S.C. 6294a(C)(7)).
Suggestion to the solid state lighting and energy efficient lighting stakeholders: Don't fall for the EPA's initiation of an after-the-fact comment period that is being used to legitimize an illegitimate specification. They've had their chance to do the right thing, and instead of rescinding this secretly-created specification, they continue to defend its importance. Do comment, but keep it simple with something along the lines of, "The specification was done without any appropriately mandated public process and as a result, all components of the specification are of suspect nature and will devalue the Energy Star brand. We respectfully request that the so-called technical amendment be rescinded and the process of discussing changes to the RLF specification be re-started in an open and public forum where both its scope and actual need can be properly considered by all involved stakeholders." Probably wouldn't hurt to copy the EPA Office of the Inspector General on that type of comment as well. Just a thought, of course.
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