Dux Nest

I once had a friend that gave me a flyer for her birthday party. The event advertised that it had intelligent lighting however she had incorrectly spelt intelligent. Oh well, she wasn’t too bright. The following is a guide to the latest technology and bright ideas in lighting:

New and emerging lighting technologies such as LEDs (light-emitting diodes) can improve lighting quality while reducing maintenance and energy costs.

There are numerous technologies used in lighting, including tungsten incandescent, quartz halogen, fluorescent, and LED. Low-pressure sodium is more common in such outdoor applications as street lighting. These various technologies have distinctive advantages and disadvantages. The most familiar “light bulbs” have been around tor more than 100 years, and they are inexpensive. But a major disadvantage is that they are inefficient and waste a lot of energy in the form of heat. In addition, incandescent bulbs have a short lifetime. Incidentally, the regular screw-in base is called the “Edison base,” which can be useful to know for online searching. Fluorescent lighting is a great deal more efficient than incandescent lighting, but the tubes are fragile, require ballasts that sometimes hum, and contain mercury. Newer compact fluorescents eliminate many of the disadvantages of the large fluorescent tubes. Halogens are more efficient than incandescents but share many of their disadvantages. (Royal Van Horn.  (2006). LEDs and Home Lighting Technology. Phi Delta Kappan, 88(2), 103,169.)

The first LEDs in 1962 consisted of a layer a few atoms thick of the compound semiconductor material, gallium arsenide. Robust and taking very little power, they were ideal as indicators. They could give only red light, but their high efficiency compared with all other electric lights led people to ask whether a bright white LED could be developed for general illumination. The problem was solved by Shuji Nakamura, born in 1954 on Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s four main islands. Nakamura had studied electrical engineering at a local university, where he became fascinated with solid-state physics and obtained a master’s degree.

Nakamura saw that the key to solving the problem was the development of an efficient bright blue LED. If he could achieve that, he could also make a green LED, and by combining red, green, and blue LEDs produce white. Although blue LEDs based on silicon carbide were being developed by other researchers, their efficiency was very low. Nakamura’s studies led him to conclude that the blue LED should be based on gallium nitride, but forming a thin, single-crystal layer of gallium nitride was extremely difficult. (Brian Bowers.  (2008). Brilliant! Shuji Nakamura and the Revolution in Lighting Technology. Review of Technology and Culture, 49(2), 479-481.)

The newest kid on the block, LEDs are 10-20 times more efficient than incandescents, so they use substantially less electricity. LEDs are also rugged and have a lifetime of more than 100,000 hours. Because I get tired of changing light bulbs, this is a very attractive feature. LEDs are small, so they must be combined into arrays or clusters. And because LEDs are low-voltage devices, using them in home lighting requires a power supply. In an LED light bulb, this power supply is built into the base of the bulb.

LEDs deliver a different correlated color temperature (CCT) compared to the old incandescent lamps; 6500K for the new LEDs compared to 2600K for the incandescent lamps. The scotopically enhanced color from the new LEDs provides an improved perception of overall brightness.

The fiber optic lighting system uses a remote source light. The light is channeled into a fiber optic distribution system and emitted into the space by an illuminator. The illuminator uses optics designed to match the application to illuminate the product. The new fiber optic lighting system requires less overall power and energy. (Steven Parker,  Joseph Konrade,  E Carroll Shepherd III. (2009). New Lighting Technologies Demonstrated at Defense Commissaries. Energy Engineering, 106(2), 7-18.)

Energy-efficient lighting technologies have been available for five to 10 years but have yet to make significant inroads into the market. The biggest deterrent seems to be the initial cost of retrofitting. “It takes more than just replacing standard bulbs with more energy efficient ones,” explains Alden Hathaway, Sylvania’s manager of pricing and applications. “Generally, a company needs to research various options for lighting a particular area, and it may be necessary to change the entire fixture in order to put in place the best lighting solution.”

“Lighting is usually handled by facilities managers and is not considered a management item,” another industry spokesperson says. “Typically, building managers are not positioned to ask for an increase in their budgets. So, many continue to purchase conventional lighting rather then retrofit for systems that offer lower lifecycle costs through electricity savings.”

Such thinking may be increasingly penny-wise and pound-foolish. According to industry experts, organizations may see a payback in the shape of lower electric bills in as little as one year. (Peak, Martha H.  (1993). A brighter, lighter business idea. Management Review, 82(8), 8.)

Tags: Bright, Energy, Fibre Optic, Fluorescent, Incandescent, LED, Light-Emitting Diodes, Lighting, Nakamura.