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Seoul Semiconductor LEDs Power Street Lights in Valencia, Spain
SSLighting Design News Staff
March 17, 2010...Thanks to 1000 new streetlights using Seoul Semiconductor LEDs, streets in Valencia, Spain will be brighter, tourists safer, and electrical bills less. Revolution LED of Spain reportedly initiated a program to replace existing light bulbs on streets and in public facilities throughout the country with LED-based lighting. The street lights were installed in the municipality of Rafelbunyol.
After a year of testing, Revolution LED reportedly proved that Seoul Semiconductor’s long-lasting LEDs are up to the job. Seoul Semiconductor says its LEDs offer luminous efficacy of 100lm/W from a single light source, and they last three times longer than traditional street lights. Seoul Semiconductor News Release
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Digital Lumens Offers Novel Approach to Efficient LED Lighting with Network of Fixtures
SSLighting Design News Staff
March 17, 2010...Digital Lumens of Boston, Massachusetts USA, has taken a system-wide approach to lighting with what it calls the first Intelligent Lighting System. The system reportedly combines LEDs, networking, and software to reduce lighting-related energy use by up to 90 percent in warehouses and industrial facilities. Digital Lumens boasts that its system enables customers to reduce costs, improve light delivery and meet sustainability targets.
The solution includes what the company calls its Intelligent Lighting System (ILS) in which LED-based fixtures each have on-board computing, sensing, and built-in intelligence. Together the fixtures form what company calls a Smart Light Grid, a lighting network with system-wide intelligence and integrated controls that provide what the company says is superior energy efficiency.
Digital Lumens News Release
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Osram Aims to Offer More Flexible and Interchangeable LED Lighting Platform for Designing Fixtures
SSLighting Design News Staff
March 17, 2010...Osram has come out with what it says is a future-proof platform for LED illumination that the company calls PrevaLED. Osram says its PrevaLED Core Light Engines offer flexibility, freedom of design, and high efficiency. The PrevaLED range leverages fixed interfaces that the company claims reduce both development effort and time to market for luminaire developments. The system consists of light engine and electronics control gear. Osram boasts that the prevaled range significantly reduces the effort required to develope new luminaires and thus saves costs. the company says that it allows designers to evaluate and realize ideas much quicker.
The prevaled core product family provides a range of lumen output options from 800lm to 3.000lm at a system efficiency of up to 75lm/w. it comes in color temperatures of 3.000k and 4.000k, and osram says it has a very high color rendering index, cri of 90. without compromising system efficiency. Osram points out that active control of the light engines can reduce the tolerances between single light engines below the limit of visual perception and ensures top quality of light in the application.
The round modules are 50mm in diameter and feature integrated reflector mounting options. They have a beam angle of 140° which the company syas is ideally suited for light shaping with reflectors. The light engines can be integrated with various control gears to allow additional functions such as dimming. The company boasts that module's features and their compact size make the Core light engines ideally suited for use in downlights and spots of various output powers.
Company News Release
Zumtobel LEDs Illuminate Neuschwanstein Castle
SSLighting Design News Staff
March 11, 2010...King Ludwig II, who was very open minded about using innovative technologies when he constructed the Neuschwanstein Palace near Füssen, Germany in the 19th century. He would likely have been delighted with the castle's newly installed LED lighting from Zumtobel. The Bavarian Administration of State-owned Palaces, Gardens and Lakes has skipped a few generations of lighting technology; proceeding directly to what they found to be the most innovative light source, the LED.
In particular the high-quality artistic furnishings of the magnificent rooms, are now being highlighted efficiently and gently, by LEDs supplied by Zumtobel. Zumtobel's Supersystem LED lighting system and Tempura LED spotlights have recently been installed in the magnificent Throne Room. Nearly all areas that are accessible for visitors are scheduled to be fitted with individual LED lighting solutions by the company during the year. Zumtobel News Release
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Ecogreen Solutions Installs ilumisys LED Light Tubes at Holiday Inn San Diego Downtown
SSLighting Design News Staff
March 11, 2010...ilumisys of Troy, Michigan USA, reports that its channel partner, Ecogreen solutions has installed LED light tubes at Holiday Inn San Diego Downtown in San Diego.
The new lighting was needed to improve lighting quality and lower energy costs.
Los Angeles-based Ecogreen Solutions replaced T-8 fluorescent lights in the hotel's subterranean parking lot with ilumisys MK2 T-8 LED light tubes. Ecogreen predicts that the replacement will result in a cost savings of nearly $5,000 annually and a 57 percent energy savings over the previously installed 32 watt fluorescent fixtures. A second phase of Ecogreen's project will include the installation of ilumisys led-based tubes for general illumination of the hotel's administration offices.
"We were seeking new ways to improve the lighting in our parking structure while also lowering our energy consumption and costs," said Gary Comeaux, general manager of Holiday Inn San Diego Downtown. "After reviewing several lighting options with Ecogreen Solutions, we decided to use ilumisys tubes because of their performance and quality construction."
ilumisys News Release
University of Pittsburgh Researchers Find LED Streetlights Most Cost Effective and Environmentally Friendly in Cradle-to-Grave Comparison
SSLighting Design News Staff
March 11, 2010...Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh were commissioned by the city of Pittsburgh to do a cradle-to-grave life-cycle assessment of LED street lights as it considers replacing 40,000 street lights with LED-based street lights. The researchers concluded that LED street lights "... outstrip other lights for balance of brightness, energy efficiency, life span, cost, and low environmental impact."
The researchers determined that the increasingly popular lamps "...strike the best balance between brightness, affordability, and energy and environmental conservation when their life span-from production to disposal-is considered."
Engineers in the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation based in Pitt's Swanson School of Engineering compared LED streetlights to two common lamps-the high-pressure sodium (HPS) lamps found in most cities and metal halide lamps akin to those in stadiums-and the gas-based induction bulb, another emerging technology billed as bright and energy efficient. The team reported that although LEDs may carry a hefty price tag, when compared to HPS and metal halide lamps, they consume half the electricity, last up to five times longer, and produce more light.
The research indicated that induction lights were slightly more affordable and energy efficient than LEDs, but those gains were outweighed by the greater environmental impact when in use. The study's authors also noted that LED technology has more potential for improvement and may surpass induction lamps in the future.
The researchers found an extreme amount of variability among LED street lights in terms of cost and performance, but overall they found that there is significant economic and environmental case for choosing LED street lights over other lighting technologies. University of Pittsburgh News Release
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Commentary & Perspectives...
The Age of Intelligent Lighting is now upon us
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
March 19, 2010...A visit to any stage production or concert makes it quickly apparent that computers have been involved in lighting for a long while, and in LED lighting since it first appeared in all its color-controlled glory. On-off-intensity-hue all get sent from the programmable controller to the individual receiver modules, that either contain or control the drivers that turn on and off the individual or banks of LEDs. For general purpose white lighting, we haven't seen much of that yet. It makes sense, given that a) lighting already exists (I have some in both rooms!), b) doesn't normally have much intelligence in most installations, and c) solid state lighting has pretty much been working to slot-in to ceilings or light poles where a light already was. You could make the LED luminaire smarter if you wanted, but then what? Nice to be able to talk, but only if you have someone to talk to.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not implying that the current generation of LED lighting isn't sophisticated, as many of them have microcontrollers built in. Basically, they are very dedicated little computers, like the ones that oversee a car's convertible top operating in its proper sequence, and only when the driver door is closed and the speed is less then 5 MPH, or which differentiate between an underpass and a tunnel in figuring out to turn the headlights on or off. In some cases, especially for parking or street lights, manufacturers integrate-in the obvious daylight sensor, as well as motion sensors that may provide an off/dim/full capability. We saw an example of Beta LED's motion-activated bi-level parking area versions in a tour at the last Raleigh DOE conference and it showed their clear-thinking design approach. See what you need to see, when you need to see it. You can see to the other end of the parking garage, and as you approach, up come the lights and you can see the details you need to miss the hubcaps while collecting the spare change in your direct path. If there was another car or pedestrian there, it would have already been on, so the safety "buffer zone" is pretty intuitive. Motion sensing makes sense in a lot of areas, from refrigerator cases to offices, and has been a challenge in the past as fluorescents really didn't like the whole on and off thing, and required fairly long minimum cycle times to keep they, or their power sections, from burning out very prematurely. We've been told that a new generation of sensors and supplies, geared towards the capabilities of the LEDs, is a necessary answer.
In another intelligent approach, discussed at the November 2009 NY SSL Summit (visit www.SSLsummit.com for 2010/2011 plans), we heard from Elumen Lighting on the smarts built into their streetlights that provide for constant light output (lumen compensation), as well as timer- or sensor-based dimming. Since no one is really sure yet what precise behavior individual LED models will have over 50,000 to 100,000+ hours, they took the approach of whether they lose 5% or 10%, or later 20% or more of their output (or gain output for a period as has been observed for some types of LEDs), the intelligence in their units will dial the current up or down as needed to keep the light output in a target range. At the Summit, we also discussed the options that such an approach suggests for end of life issues. Turning up the juice leads to a predictable "shuts off when too much power is needed", similar to what's happening in current HID streetlights, but that's 60,000 hours down the road, and without the annoying re-strike "feature" that keeps the cheaper ones running on a X minutes on, Y minutes off kind of cycle that drove us nutty in a previous house (had it not been quite as populated a street, or maybe if I just had a powerful enough pellet gun instead of just the 30-30, the nighttime torture may have ended more quickly). With the information the compensation controller has at its disposal, it's a small step to a variety of other end of life options, including shutting off at a set number of operating hours, going to an obviously dim mode that signals the need for replacement, but still keeps people from stumbling over a curb, or simply "phoning home" to advise that failure is imminent, and replacement needs to happen while the lights are still on (hmmm... wondering if it can monitor the capital budgets or inventory to choose the most convenient time for the notification?).
The idea of "phoning home" provides the entree to the whole idea of the lighting network, where two way communication is taking place. We recently had a chance to meet the folks from Synapse Wireless who have developed a very flexible, self-configuring wireless communications network that allows individual elements to communicate back to "home base", either directly up to 2 miles for a simple node, or over extended distances by passing the communications seamlessly from one node to the next. The added cost of the communications chips and transceivers can currently get to about $5-10 per node, which in the context of several hundred dollars for a streetlight isn't all that much. And as we know, the cost of technology is on a steadily decreasing curve for that kind of thing, so the idea should definitely have some legs. Transmission line communications are part of the current "smart grid" type of capabilities that are starting to be deployed, and while they have some major limitations when it comes to individual lighting nodes, there is always work being done to get around the next obstacle. I know I was amazed when my local electric cooperative (Texan for "power company when you're not in a big enough city") let me know that I could monitor my power consumption on a day to day basis online. Oh look, must have used the dryer a lot yesterday... it cost how much?
And the ideas certainly aren't limited to the streets or refrigerator cases. In the last week, two new players aiming at the "intelligent facility lighting" arena made their presence known. Redwood Systems introduced their company and technology approach, which in its simplest form, removes the AC-to-DC and certain control components from the luminaires, and moves them back upstream to provide centralized power conversion, command and control. The idea is that it will enable data gathering about all aspects of the luminaires and the usage patterns and allow more economy of scale by eliminating redundant power and control componentry, as well as provide almost limitless flexibility in the integration of the facility lighting as part of a fully intelligent building-wide, energy management "system". They are not providing the luminaires, but are instead working on establishing key partnerships with luminaire providers and lighting companies who would offer the DC-only luminaires. Their technology overview describes the ability to control 64 fixtures on a single DC power feed, which admittedly creates a little head scratching. One would expect a standard office luminaire to produce something around 1000 lumens, which currently requires at least 10 watts. Dividing the LEDs up to allow something like a 12V DC input, you're looking at around 1A per fixture (or .5A for a 24V input), which can add up to a lot of amperage on a wire. Even at 48V, 64 fixtures would represent 15 or so amps, which doesn't add up to cheap wire. (We're giving them a call to clarify this morning, so keep an eye on a subsequent headline "Updated" note if I missed something). Assuming that the wire-cost challenges are overcome, using power rail systems for instance, the idea of treating the lighting as a network is a really interesting one.
The other new arrival in the arena is a company called Digital Lumens, who made their actual product announcement. They combine a ZigBee wireless protocol with motion sensors and other data to precisely manage the building wide network of high- or mid-bay luminaires that they offer. We've always been proponents of finding the best niches that really take advantage of the technology, and they have done exactly that by making the refrigerated warehouse their poster-child application. Cold environment, high shelves, narrow aisles. It applies nearly equally to more conventional warehousing, but LEDs do love cooler environments and have plenty of lumens to do the job when you can narrow their beam angle to hit those aisles spot on. No one needs to light the top of the shelving, just the sides, and in a warehouse, you don't need to light it when no one is there. The incumbent technologies had a hard time being both efficient, and quick to turn on and off, so Digital Lumens' claim for their pilot customers are a credible 90% energy savings. And it's not because of an efficiency advantage at the source (LED vs. fluorescent or HID bulb), but rather due to being able to better control where the photons go, and when they go there.
All the ideas are good, and I believe this is just the beginning of the next wave in LED lighting: Make solid state lighting smarter so that the currently-higher acquisition costs are easily offset by the real-world, facility-wide energy savings by using a little less energy to make the light, and a lot less to get it where it needs to be, when it needs to be there.
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