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Albeo Granted “Chip-in-Fixture” Patent
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Lighting
Developer is the leading destination in the SSL industry for engineers
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Cree Illuminates Seven Newport News Public Schools with Energy-Efficient LED Lighting
SSLDesign News Staff
August 13, 2012...Durham, North Carolina-based Cree Inc. reports that the Newport News Public School District in Virginia recently installed more than 185 Cree LED exterior luminaires. According to Cree, the Newport News Public School District is the first Virginia school district in the area with a significant LED lighting installation. The district selected Cree THE EDGE® security, area and parking structure luminaires for the exteriors of seven schools: General Stanford Elementary, Greenwood Elementary, Lee Hall Elementary, Palmer Elementary, Crittenden Middle, Booker T. Washington Middle and Denbigh High.
The parking lots at all seven schools now meet the sustainable illumination requirements of each school, which helps reduce energy and maintenance costs for the district and tax payers. THE EDGE luminaires replaced 189 high-pressure sodium and 150 incandescent fixtures. Officials estimate the LED lighting upgrade resulted in significant annual energy savings of 139,000 kWh and reduction in annual lighting energy costs at the seven facilities by 65 percent. Officials also estimate a payback of three years for the installation and expect ongoing operational savings due to the extended lifetime of Cree® luminaires and the reduced maintenance needs.
“These energy efficient lights virtually eliminate maintenance, provide the district with dramatic energy savings and also reflect the community’s commitment to sustainability,” said Keith Webb, executive director of plant services for the Newport News Public School District. “The LED lighting furthers our goal of enhancing and bettering the learning environment, while saving money for the schools and tax payers.”
Christopher Ruud, vice president global sales, Cree lighting stated, “Using THE EDGE luminaires with BetaLED® technology, Newport News Public School District demonstrates the financial and performance benefits of switching out incandescent and high-pressure sodium lighting for energy-efficient LEDs.”
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Increased Productivity, Not Less Energy Use, Results from More Efficient Lighting, According to Sandia Researchers
SSLDesign News Staff
August 9, 2012...In an article from the journal Energy Policy, two researchers seek clarify their 2010 article which showed that historically people have spent more and more money to get more and more light. And any improvements with efficiency have ultimately resulted in more spending on light making mechanisms, and will ultimately not save energy. However, the researchers said that the increased light lead to increased human productivity
In the original article Sandia researcher Jeff Tsao and Harry Saunders of The Breakthrough Institute in Oakland, Calif., predicted that the same phenomenon might apply to LEDs, which are poised to take over from the Edison light bulb as the next, more efficient light source of choice.
In the most recent article they have attempted to clarify their main point that historically increased light availability has lead to increased productivity. Workers are no longer forced to stop shortly after nightfall, as they had in primitive, candle-illuminated huts, but instead could continue producing through the night in homes, offices, factories, and even at outdoor locations not serviced by power lines.
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Packaged LED Market to Grow Tremendously Between 2012 and 2018, According to Yole Développement
LIGHTimes News Staff
August 9, 2012... Market research firms Yole Développement and EPIC , have forecast that the the packaged LED market will grow tremendously between 2012 and 2018.
The prediction is in Yole Développement's latest report dedicated to the LED industry, titled “Status of the LED Industry”.
Yole Développement notes that LED backlit TV was expected to be the LED industry driver for 2011.
Yole says however that lower adoption of LEDs in the TV market and the entry of several new players, mostly from Asia, created a climate of overcapacity, price pressure and strong competition.
Consequently, packaged LED volume was about 30% lower than expected and revenue shrank due to strong ASP pressure, according to Yole.
“In 2012, most companies have moved to the new “El Dorado” of LED business: general lighting, which represents the next killer application for LEDs. But enabling massive adoption of the technology for such an application still requires a large decrease in the cost of LED-based products…,” explained Pars Mukish, market and technology analyst, LED at Yole Développement.
Yole Développement and EPIC estimate packaged LED revenue will reach a market size of $11.4 billion in 2012 and will peak to $17.1 billion by 2018. Growth will be driven both by the display (LCD TV) and general lighting applications until massive adoption of LEDs in lighting.
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Michigan and Ohio Hospitals Save Money with GE LED Fixtures
SSLDesign News Staff
August 9, 2012...Michigan and Ohio Hospitals Save Money with GE LED Fixtures
Spectrum Health, one of Michigan’s largest not-for-profit health systems located in Grand Rapids, retrofitted 1.25 million square feet of parking garage space and more than 3,500 parking spaces with 1,500 GE Evolve™ LED Garage fixtures. Spectrum health had three goals for the project: improving security, reducing maintenance costs, and saving energy. After the retrofit project, Spectrum accomplished those goals. The GE Evolve™ LED Garage Fixture used in the parking lots employ a unique low-glare optical system coupled thermal management technology to ensure long life.
This week GE announced another, unrelated project to light the hospital parking lot of the Aultman Hospital in Canton, Ohio with its Evolve LED area lights.
GE says that the upgrade of the Michigan hospital has saved the facility nearly $170,000 annually in combined energy and maintenance expenses, Spectrum replaced older 175-watt high-pressure sodium (HPS) fixtures, with GE’s 60-watt Evolve LED lights. The hospital expects a 67 percent energy reduction, which will result in 1.6 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy savings annually.
Spectrum also installed 50-watt GE Lumination™ LED Recessed Troffers in ceilings in entrance/exit corridors, replacing 150-watt high-intensity discharge (HID) fixtures. The 2'x2' troffers are as thin as the width of a finger and emit a crisp, uniform light to brightly illuminate spaces inside the garage.
“Our patients and employees are our first priority,” said Tom Theoret, director of facilities, Spectrum Health. “It’s important that everyone feels welcome and secure while at our facilities. Our new fixtures not only met this requirement but also reduced our energy consumption and reduced burdensome maintenance.”
Combining overall savings from maintenance costs, energy costs, a Novation rebate, and a Consumers Energy utility rebate, GE says that Spectrum should realize project payback in just three years.
At the Aultman Hospital in Ohio, thirty-two Evolve LED Area Lights replaced 52 HPS fixtures in the lot. With HPS lighting Aultman’s average expense for the lot was $1,500 a month including the cost of an electrical contractor to replace failed fixtures. Since the LED conversion, the hospital’s utility bill has fallen to $400 and a service call hasn't been needed yet. GE says that its Evolve LED area lights provide an estimated 10-year service life that is four times the recommended service interval of traditional high-intensity discharge (HID) lighting.
“Our security team stood on top of our building and looked down into the lot – everything was completely evenly lit, the continuity of light was absolutely incredible,” said Betsy Pooley, director of building services for Aultman.
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Commentary & Perspectives...
Enough of taking light for granted already...
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
August 14, 2012...In the beginning, as it goes, there was darkness until there was light. And it was good. Most folks tend not to think about the light very much, other than as the antithesis of darkness. I can't see, I turn on the light, now I can see... mission accomplished. But over the last few years (which counts as 'recently' if you've hit at least 50) I'm becoming a believer the light is much more elemental, and more important than just "not dark".
From the more philosophical standpoint, light is something, while darkness isn't. Dark is an absence of light, not a thing that has been unleashed, in much the same way cold is what you get if don't have molecular motion (aka 'heat'). One reason we tend to assign substance to those 'anti' things is because they come along with other effects that are something. A shadow is something, and it lets us see a contrast between light levels. Wind puts a bite into the cold, letting us feel the cooler air molecules, giving some extra tangibility to the absence of warmth. Seems to me that it's high time the 'pro' part of light get some more credit for all it does for us.
Humans are very visually oriented, and how we see things shapes how we interpret them. That is most often a physical assessment, such as "which direction is the car going" or "how tall is the next step on the staircase" or even "what word do those letters on the screen assemble into". It's interesting that light also carries a significant emotional context. Anyone who has stared into a fire for a few minutes, or hours, gets it. The quiet of the morning would have a whole different perception if the sun was blazing overhead rather than just popping up clear of the horizon. The natural world provides us with lots of lighting variation that shapes our interaction with our surroundings. Night becomes day, darkening skies warn us of rain (or green ones send us scrambling for shelter from the tornado), midday sun perks us up, or whatever. But our unnaturally lit environment has spent quite some time going little further than being an antithesis to darkness. Office... I can see the words on the paper... good.
There have definitely been steps along the way that had little 'ah-ha moments' when we realized that there was something wrong with a particular utility lighting. When fluorescents came into use, the world discovered the annoyance of a flickering lamp that not only made us a bit irritable, but that gave some folks headaches, or even triggered seizures in those sensitive enough. Maybe flicker isn't good?... Got it. Moving past incandescents also gave us the opportunity to 'discover', and dislike, harsh light. Bright and good were no longer synonymous.
With the advent of LED lighting, we're opening the doors to control every aspect of the unnatural lighting around us, and that, in turn, is letting us study it in a depth never before possible. What does more blue do to us? (Supresses melatonin, for one, creating alertness or blocking that useful get-ready-for-bed sleepiness). How about more red? (Just the opposite... so not so good as a replacement for the morning cup of coffee). Conveniently, I just spotted an email peeking out from behind this document window that ties right into the theme, as the folks at the Lighting Research Center have released a new publication about the detectability and acceptability of flicker in our lights, most relevant to LEDs.
According to the release, the studies at LRC were designed to determine what light source parameters affect the detection of flicker and stroboscopic effects, and to assess subjective responses to flicker in terms of acceptance and comfort. (Scientists try to steer clear of periods in their topic sentences). Previous research apparently had shown at what frequencies direct flicker is perceptible but didn't identify thresholds and acceptance levels for indirect perception. They also hadn't provided a means of predicting these perception and acceptance levels for SSL. Notes the release, "The results from these studies suggest that there is a tradeoff between the frequency and the modulation depth in the detection and acceptability of indirect flicker." The ASSIST recommends publication is available on the ASSIST website here. The published studies leading to the ASSIST recommendation can also be found online. The first paper, “Effects of flicker characteristics from solid-state lighting on detection, acceptability and comfort,” was published in 2011 in volume 43, issue 3, of Lighting Research and Technology. The second paper, “Detection and acceptability of stroboscopic effects from flicker,” was published in the online early access section of the same journal.
Color, flicker, and a new definition of white light (3rd paragraph in that commentary), are just a few of the areas of investigation that are being dissected by knowledgeable folks. And while we'll see more of that kind of information in the coming years, we'll also be hearing more about the holistic nature of light. While good light makes us functional, does better light make us more functional? And is better light simply a more complete or "tuned" spectrum and more robust color rendering, or is it light that integrates with our emotions to make us happier, more functional people? Focusing on the task, if there is that kind of focus at all, is likely falling woefully short of the real need which is to focus on the person performing the task. Are they getting what they "need" from the lighting made available to them? In the past, there wasn't much of an option set to start with, and it narrowed considerably if we threw some form of energy or maintenance efficiency into the equation.
Things are going to change, though. LED lighting is going to provide options that meet both of the constraints without any appreciable compromise. While the bulk of the market may not recognize it yet, there are forward thinkers hiding in plain sight, doing their part for lighting design from a holistic viewpoint, and they are excited about what LED lighting can bring to the table. They have often been perceived as "artsy" which is to say "less then fully practical" but that label is going to diminish in its impractical connotations as we discover that appealing to both the physical and emotional aspects of the person (dare I say it?) "experiencing" the light, matters. Happy, healthy, productive, entertaining... light.
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