Both organizations believe that interchangeable LED light engines will lead to a wider choice of suppliers of compatible components, lower R&D costs for luminaire makers, and reduced risk concerning the availability of replacement parts.

“The lighting industry operates on a global scale, and the specifications being developed by Zhaga are for global use,” said Menno Treffers, secretary-general of the Zhaga Consortium. “It is very important for Zhaga to be able to share the results of its work throughout the international lighting community, and the liaison with GLA provides a clear route to achieve this goal.”

Under the agreement the two organizations will cooperate to make the lighting industry aware of the advantages and benefits offered by interchangeable LED light sources. Also as part of the agreement, Zhaga will provide GLA with regular updates on the activities and progress made by Zhaga. In turn, GLA will pass this information to its members and offer feedback to Zhaga.

ÅF Lighting comes from parent company ÅF – Hansen & Henneberg in Copenhagen and has existed as an independent business area within the ÅF Group since 2011. With the merger, 71 employees will be working at offices in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo and Malmö.

Ljusarkitektur is a Stockholm-based lighting design company founded by Kai Piippo in 1991.

"Ljusarkitektur has a very strong design profile and together with our lighting designers and lighting engineers we will create Scandinavia’s strongest lighting consultancy company. The aim is to bring Nordic lighting design into the world," says head of ÅF Lighting, Allan Ruberg.

Kai Piippo, owner of Ljusarkitektur and future chief designer in the ÅF Lighting office in Stockholm added, "The possibilities to design both artificial lighting and daylight solutions have never been bigger and we look forward to create world-class solutions in this new collaboration."

As an educational institution, Questacon wanted to lead by example in adopting sustainable practices throughout its buildings. In addition to the H2O exhibition, Questacon has gone on to complete the Excite@Q gallery, which employs the Philips Selecon PL1s and also the Philips Selecon Accent Display luminaire.

Philips says that the PL1 is the first light source allows full control of the beam color composition regardless of intensity. According to Philips Marketing Manager Pete Borchetta, "The resulting luminaire is a fully tunable high output LED light engine supporting colour temperatures from 3000K to 5600K and full color mixing with a maximum output similar to that of a 70 watt metal halide powered luminaire."

"As an interactive Science Centre our requirement for lighting is based on more of a theatrical approach than traditional museum lighting," said Christine Hendry, creative manager at Questacon. "We use a combination of focused light and color washing luminaires and needed to have an integrated approach to our gallery lighting with a plan for implementation over several years. The PL1s were seen as the perfect solution for us."

"Our main criteria were the capability for individual luminaire adjustment, pre-programmed lighting scenes, which could be controlled from one point, the ability to color change walls/floors to create different environments, to reduce maintenance costs associated with replacement lamps and labour, and the ability to achieve color in a variety of ambient lighting levels. We were also looking for a product that could be integrated into our existing infrastructure with minimal cost."

"The Selecon PL1s are performing perfectly," continued Hendry. "We are able to change the lighting environment to suit the needs of the various exhibitions in our space, and have had a marked improvement in maintenance cost savings as we haven't needed to change any lamps in the galleries with the PL1s."

"We are so pleased with the results that we achieved with the PL1s and the flexibility the fittings provided that we have started a replacement program throughout our other galleries," Hendry concluded.

Zhaga is an industry-wide light engine certification standard to help enable the interchangeability of LED light sources made by different manufacturers.The Zhaga Consortium has started certification for products designed according to several more of the Zhaga Interface Specifications, which are known as Books. Certification is now available for Book 4, Book 7 and Book 8. Each Book covers a different type of LED light engine, which the consortium defines as the combination of an LED module and the associated electronic control gear (also known as the LED driver). The specifications define the interfaces between the LED light engine and an LED luminaire.

"UL is proud to be a trusted authorized Zhaga Test Center and member of the Consortium Steering Committee," said Todd Straka, global director, UL Lighting. "These additional book authorizations illustrate our growing commitment to assisting in the global adoption and use of high-quality and efficient LED Lighting products," added Straka.

Zhaga standards cover the physical dimensions, as well as the photometric, electrical and thermal behavior, of LED light engines. Standardization is expected to prevent market fragmentation into incompatible products.

Book 4 defines the interfaces of a type-D LED light engine (non-socketable LED module with separate electronic control gear). This LED light engine is intended for applications that need a high-intensity light source, such as street lighting and industrial high-bay applications. Book 4 specifies a rectangular light-emitting surface in three variants, 30 mm x 7.5 mm, 42 mm x 10.5 mm, and 60 mm x 15 mm.

Book 7 defines the interfaces of a type-D LED light engine (non-socketable LED module with separate electronic control gear). Book 7 includes a range of indoor LED light engines with different form factors and is intended for applications such as indoor office lighting.

Book 8 defines a socketable light engine with integrated control gear - mainly used in downlight applications.

These three new book accreditations add to the two books UL is already authorized to test for; Zhaga Interface Specification Book 2: Socketable LED light engine with integrated control gear (65-mm base) and Zhaga Interface Specification Book 3: Disc-shaped LED module with 9-23 mm light-emitting surface.

Acuity's Holophane HMAO LED high masts use 290-watts per fixture, and are rated to deliver up to 100,000 hours of maintenance-free operation. The company says that they feature multiple LED modules, reducing the potential for dark areas in the event an LED module failure. The company says that through use of multiple LED drivers, HMAO LED high masts offer the choice of various lumen packages, and provide a back-up light source and overlapping distribution. Additionally, prismatic glass optics minimize the direct view of the light source.

"Our main goal is to provide a safe transportation system for the state of Maine," said Ron Cote, MaineDOT Electrical Supervisor. "We were looking for a light source that would provide lower maintenance and a whiter light. The benefits of multiple LED drivers and modules and the longevity of Holophane HMAO LED fixtures are exactly what we wanted. Additionally, the quality of light combined with the payback of these fixtures is absolutely incredible."

Acuity says that the state's previous high-pressure sodium light fixtures were turned off each night from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. in order to reduce operating costs. This left roads and rest areas dark during that time. In addition, the uneven light distribution from the previous fixtures left bright spots and glare on the road.

Each newly retrofitted light tower, operating from dusk to dawn each day, cost only about $66 per month to run, compared to $200 per month for each tower using the previous fixtures and operating a reduced number of hours. The energy cost reduction reportedly allows MaineDOT to leave the lights on throughout the night for a safer transit environment. Acuity says that once the retrofit project is completed, the HMAO LED high masts are expected to savings the MaineDOT about $135,000 annually and about $1.35 million over 10 years.

Light towers in the Falmouth area have already been retrofitted with the new HMAO LED high mast luminaires. The MaineDOT will also retrofit light towers in Portland, Saco, Kittery, Waterville, Bangor and Medway rest areas.

"More than 40 years ago, Holophane was first to market with innovative, high mast lighting systems," said Rob Drago, Acuity Brands Lighting Vice President, Infrastructure. "As an established leader in the industry, we continue to advance the technology, creating a best in class product that provides the features and benefits of a true high mast luminaire."

Denton Corker Marshall’s Melbourne Gateway (originally completed 1999) is described as the ‘Mother of all architectural interventions’* on the city’s freeways! A massive 70-meter yellow steel beam, which is cantilevered at precarious angles, traverses 8 lanes of freeway and 39 elegant steel and concrete red sticks measuring 30 meter high running north / south along either side of the road over 420 meters. The North section contains 21 sticks which are 7 meters apart from one another stretching over a 142-meter distance, while the South is a section of 18 sticks also 7 meters apart, spread over a 120-meter area and sitting in an artificial lake.

Transfield Services, the primary Maintenance Contractor for CityLink, approached Anolis’ Australian partner, The ULA Group to create a lighting design that improved the color, light qualities and ambience of the original installation. CityLink wanted the lighting to have a contemporary edge and be vastly more eco-friendly and more economical to operate.

Before discussions with Transfield Services, Jason Saunders assessed the projects requirements to find the appropriate product that would deliver the right results along with the best energy savings. Saunders Project Managed for ULA, worked in close collaboration with Manny Micallef, Transfield Services’ Technical Officer Mechanical and Electrical Assets. Based upon Saunders assessment and calculations, ULA specified the Anolis ArcSource 96 LED fixtures, for their “Impressive light output, ruggedness and ability to customize the product lensing and also the casing for vandal-resistance,” Saunders said.

The ArcSource 96 has consumes a maximum of 100Watts. Whereas the previous incandescent sources were 1000Watts each. The ArcSource 96s have tough protective back-plates, Anaconda cable casing, and a special lens array to ensure that the light reaches the right places.

The Transfield Services electricians removed the old lighting fixtures from their posts and replaced them with the ArcSource 96s, thus saving time and money. At the factory the units were customized with the fitting of wireless receiver cards and special antennas, for data control. This saved the installers the time and the trouble of running more cables. A total of 78 Anolis ArcSource 96s (two per stick) are utilized to light the Red Sticks which are clearly visible to all crossing the Melbourne Gateway. Each fixture is individually and independently controlled.

The control signal from the main transmission hub is sent directly to the Northern fixtures. At the furthest fixture at the154 meter - point, a repeater unit beams it to the Southern ArcSource 96s, and that repeated signal then runs from 148 meters to the most distant unit at 268 metres away. An E:Cue Butler XT system with automatic triggers controls the lights for seasonal changes and special occasions. The lights are on for 10 hours each night, year-round.

The Red Sticks’ lighting has a seasonal signature look which benefits from the ArcSource’s additive color mixing. They turn red in the summer, blue in the winter, cyan in the spring and yellow for the autumn. The exact hues were all fine-tuned by the ULA team to ensure that they work best visually when combined with the art.

Cuono Biviano, Managing director of ULA Group commented, “As a born and bred Melbournian it was an absolute honor for me and my team at The ULA Group to have successfully illuminated such an iconic and prominent piece of modern art, that has millions of viewers and is a major gateway to the Melbourne CBD … with a totally energy efficient intelligent LED light solution. It meets both today’s environmental standards and more importantly, the high standards placed on us by Transfield Services."

He continued, “Anolis LED solutions are built with a design life to ensure return on investment both through running costs and physical durability. It was a pleasure to have worked with Manny and his team, and we look forward to a long and prosperous relationship with him and Transfield Services in the future."

Luminus reportedly gains access to an advanced R&D operation in California as well as the overall technical strength of Sanan’s Corporate R&D Technical Center. According to Luminus, the merger also gives it access to global specialty markets including projection display, medical, transportation, and ultra-violet, as well as general lighting markets and applications.

“Luminus has been searching for the right partner that would add to our extensive intellectual property, allow for expansion of our global operations and would be additive to our market-leading position in many segments of the worldwide specialty lighting market,” said Keith T.S. Ward, President and CEO of Luminus Devices. “This relationship with Lightera and Sanan will allow us to expand our capabilities through new access to technical and financial resources well beyond our current position.”

“As a leader in the specialty lighting market, Luminus Devices provides us with proven, state-of-the-art technology that will allow Lightera to expand both our U.S. and international offerings,” said Dr. Decai Sun, Chairman and CEO of Lightera. “We expect Luminus to continue to focus on new technology, specialty lighting markets, applications and superior customer service.”

“LED lighting is just beginning to take off in India. But we expect remarkable growth in this market over the next several years, in both commercial and off-grid applications,” said Pierre-Yves Lesaicherre, CEO Philips Lumileds. “KORE personnel will have full access to the products, services and people at Philips Lumileds, individuals who are committed to improving the customer experience with lighting.”

“Philips Lumileds has been in the forefront of developing best-in-class LED lighting solutions including indoor, outdoor, and industrial market segments and KORE is known for its experienced sales team, outstanding engineering support and large customer base in India providing innate synergies for both of us to partner,” said Praveen Mahajan, Director of KORE.

June 13, 2013...When transformational technology is introduced to a 100+ year old industry, one of two things happens: A) It changes the technology in the market or B) It changes everything. We've long held that LED lighting will change everything about lighting, but have only nibbled at the edges of how those changes will affect how the market operates (aka "everything", at least if you're involved in it). While we're not ready to make the case that all aspects of the market will change, an announcement this week has us pretty convinced that it's not unlikely that much of what we know about how "business is done" could be re-mapped from top to bottom.

This week's glimmer of "something on the horizon" came in the form of an announcement by Comcast and Osram Sylvania that Osram's remote controlled LED lamps will be offered as part of Comcast's Xfinity Home service, oulined in our article here. (The pronunciation is unknown, but I prefer making up a French version, juh-fin'-eh-tey'). As described in the coverage, Xfinity Home is a broadband and cloud-based platform that provides next-generation home security, control and energy management that allows customers to stay connected to their home and family using an interactive Web portal, mobile devices and/or theXfinity Home app. Comcast's Xfinity Home service offers 24/7 professional monitoring in addition to home control and remote energy management services that include lighting controls, digital thermostats, live video monitoring, custom text and e-mail alerts, remote arming and disarming capabilities, water and carbon monoxide sensors (their propaganda, here). Got it? Does everything... Got it.

While this was interesting as yet-another bit of evidence of the digital emitters and digital controls enabling the coming smart lighting wave, what I'm pointing to here is yet another example of shifting paradigms... In this case, it's the bundling.

Bundling is a common marketing strategy to bring two loosely associated items into a common "thought" for lack of a more specific, but more encompassing word. Think for a moment about product placement in entertainment. An example would be my watching a fun TV program (say "Warehouse 13") and where I begin to notice that the agents are zooming through the forest in a Prius. Conveniently (for the placemment) it later got melted, and the agent showed up at HQ in a shiny shiny new one. While hopping out he gives the mirror a quick buff and comments, "This is a much better color for me...". During a slow-thumb moment on the DVR, a commercial snuck onto our bargain-priced LED-backlit TV and low and behold, it was Toyota touting the Prius as the "official car of the Warehouse 13 agents". I'm having fun watching the show (that would be "the thought") and Toyota grabs a piece of that so my brain connects Prius and "fun" without them having to do any convincing at all. Much short of 300 horsepower, the brain planted in my head tends to reject the association (NCIS' Dodge Charger is more my style, which is probably why the Prius struck me as... interesting), but it's in there nonetheless. Next time I'm car shopping, I'll likely have to make a decision to either accept or reject that implanted association much as I have to wrestle with rejecting Frosted Flakes in the grocery aisle ("... they're gggrreat!"), while less well branded cereals get no thought at all.

Beyond thought-sharing, we also get business-sharing out of bundling. One expects Osram is getting volume, driving down the cost of components and products, while Comcast likely expects to get goodwill and "taking care of it all" types of association out of the bundling. More subtly, their customers actually begin to expect the Xfinity service to pretty much doing the thinking for them when it comes to their home environment. While someone may not initially "need" their iPhone to turn on their lights for them when they arrive home, once they play with it a little, and maybe set up that entry light to flip on when they hit the driveway, it will miraculously become something they really do miss as soon as they don't have it. (We're all children... we don't know we want a toy, but once you have handed it to us, you'll be hard pressed to take it away, even if we haven't played with it in months...). As the song goes, "You don't know what you've got til it's gone..."

So what's really the big deal on this bundling? Simply put, this is just the beginning. If I can become the "data repository" for your life, I can watch what you do, what you need, what you like, and I can usefully predict what else you will want and need from there. I can market to you; specifically to you, and I can entice you to buy more of the things you want or need from me, or through me. Google knows this. Microsoft knows this. Your internet provider knows this. And very soon, the lighting industry will know this. And in knowing they will be caught up in a very big wave that we can just call, "Predictive need fulfillment" (someone will coin something cooler, but I'll stick with that for now). Smart lighting, enabled by the myriad of sensors it will soon house, will not only respond to your requests "at the moment" but will begin to learn and predict what will make you happier or more productive or more fill-in-the-blank-with-whatever. Interestingly enough, the "bundling" will be quite natural as lighting is ubiquitous, so it will end up with the ownership of many more sensors than just matter to the lighting itself. Xfinity can monitor and adjust your thermostat and protect you from carbon monoxide. Other than cost (at this moment), what limits that to one CO sensor and one thermostat in the room? How about sensors that know where they are in the house, feeding back temp and CO and occupancy info and sunlight quanity which all arrive at the controller and suggest the predictive route to maintaining maximum comfort with maximum efficiency (sunlight now means heat soon... If the space is occupied, but the occupant is sitting at a desk: Is it better to autodim the windows and increase the articial light given the season, heating/coolling need and current demand-response energy rates or let in more sunlight, dim the lights and adjust the HVAC?). Somebody only has to think through the brain-twisting options once, and the programmed system will adjust things from there on.

The concept of bundling will also greatly impact the whole service value-chain in the commercial lighting arena, but in entirely different ways. Electrical service companies (ESCO's) have, for many decades, made their money from installation, maintenance and supplies for lighting systems. As replaceable lamps (bulbs) become an artifact of history, what do these lighting support organizations become? How about bundling installation, configuration monitoring and information technology? "We install the lighting systems, monitor, maintain and optimize your lighting energy management... Oh, and we can do the same for the high efficiency HVAC equipment that our partner can offer you a 20% discount on." Or it might just be Google calling up to bundle your lighting management with your new Google-fiber ultra-bandwidth service. Or Microsoft tablets bundled with the light bulbs they like to control to set up that dance club. Now the only question you'll need to know is "Where's the darn ctrl-alt-del on this bulb?" Don't worry, you'll just have to say out loud, "Xfinity! My bulb is locked up," and Comcast will get that fixed right up for you.