New GE LED outdoor lighting helps banish danger in parking lots

 

If you’ve ever crossed a parking lot at night and found yourself nervously hurrying from one reassuring pool of light to the next, you’ll be pleased to learn GE believes it has come up with a way to banish lurking shadows from large outdoor areas. The GE Evolve LED area light produces less glare and a more uniform level of light, reducing hot spots and dark spots. And, as an added bonus, it’s 30% more energy-efficient than traditional outdoor lighting.

Most existing outdoor lighting is what’s known as high-intensity discharge(HID), a kind of arc lamp that uses an electricity to heat metal salts into a glowing plasma. LED lighting, on the other hand, passes a current through an diode, causing electrons to release energy in the form of light. Because LED lights require much more precise current and heat management, they tend to err on the expensive side.

However, the economies and light quality of GE’s new offering should overcome those drawbacks. The Evolve LED has an estimated 10 year service life – about 50,000 hours – which is four times better than standard HID outdoor lighting. Using between 97 and 214 watts (depending on the lighting application), the GE LED lights are the replacement equivalent of standard 400-watt HID light.

The biggest advantage in using LED for outdoor lighting, however, is in the quality and visibility of the light produced. The GE Evolve LED light has a comparatively high “color temperature”, producing what is called a “cool” light. This increases the uniformity of the light, reduces shadowing and improves vertical illumination, so faces are better lit. Perfect, in other words, to improve the security and pedestrian visibility of big, open spaces.

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LEDs

LEDs (light-emitting diodes) are semi-


conductors that convert electricity into light. Once used just as indicator lights for electronics, LEDs have evolved into a major lighting technology that may change the future of general illumination. LEDs are highly regarded for their long life, energy efficiency, non-toxicity, durability, and flexibility. Yet as a fairly new and rapidly changing lighting technology, much research is still needed in order to fully realize the energy and cost savings potential of LEDs.

 

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Interactive Video Helps Contractors, Builders, Electricians Select and Install LED Lighting

The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute recently released an interactive video that offers guidance about selecting and installing LED lighting. The video was designed for contractors, builders, electricians, and others who professionally install LED lighting—and many homeowners will find it useful, too. Topics include product selection, advantages and challenges of LED products, economic calculations, installation tips, and links to other available resources. Viewers can earn professional continuing education credits by watching the video and using the interactive features. The project was funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

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How CFL Bulbs Work

As the symbol of innovation, the incandescent light bulb is not very innovative. It hasn't changed much since Thomas Edison introduced it in 1879. Even today, it still generates light by heating a tungsten filament until it reaches 4,172 degrees Fahrenheit (2,300 degrees Celsius) and glows white-hot. Unfortunately, all of that white light is not very green. A good deal of electricity — electricity from coal-fired powered plants responsible for spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — is required to make an incandescent bulb burn brightly. Only 10 percent of that juice goes toward making light. The rest is wasted as heat.

Luckily for our CO2-soaked planet, there's a new type of light bulb that stands poised to replace Edison's most famous invention as the icon of ideation. It's known as the compact fluorescent light bulb, or CFL, and its illumination comes by way of a much different mechanism. Instead of a glowing filament, CFLs contain argon and mercury vapor housed within a spiral-shaped tube. They also have an integrated ballast, which produces an electric current to pass through the vaporous mixture, exciting the gas molecules. In older CFLs, it took several seconds for the ballast to produce enough electricity to ramp up the excitation. Newer CFLs have more efficient ballasts and require a shorter warm-up. Either way, when the gas gets excited, it produces ultraviolet light. The ultraviolet light, in turn, stimulates a fluorescent coating painted on the inside of the tube. As this coating absorbs energy, it emits visible light.

Believe it or not, CFLs are the descendants of the lightsaber-shaped fluorescent bulbs that still flicker in garages and workshops all over the world. But these are not your father's fluorescents. Despite their heritage and their similarities to incandescent bulbs — they both require electricity, they have a glass cover, they have a threaded base — CFLs are emerging as the biggest thing in interior illumination since the candle.

This article will explain what all the fuss is about. It will examine the good, the bad and the ugly of CFLs so that you can use them with confidence. Let's start with the good — the many benefits that come from using compact fluorescent bulbs.

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How to Manage Migraines in Fluorescent Lighting

Migraines can be painful and debilitating when they occur. There are many types of stimuli that trigger migraines, including foods, noises, lighting, sounds and health conditions. With proper care and medication, migraines can be managed, if not altogether avoided. However, if you have a sensitivity to something in your workplace, such as fluorescent lighting, you should exercise precautions to avoid migraine headaches. Here are some ways to learn how to manage migraines in fluorescent lighting.

Put a filter in front of the bulbs in your overhead fluorescent lights. A filter will reduce the harshness of the lighting and will help you avoid reactions from the lighting. Filters create softer, more natural light.

1. Take some bulbs out of the fixture. This reduces the intensity of the lighting in your workspace. Because intense light is sometimes a trigger for migraine headaches, this may help to alleviate your issues.

    

    
2. 3

   Turn off the fluorescent lights. If possible, turn the lights off in your work area. If you work in a large area with cubicles, this option may not be possible. However, if you work in your own office, this may relieve your headaches. Use floor or desk lamps to light your office with softer, less intense light.

    
3. 4

   Install an anti-glare filter on your computer monitor. While you may have already adjusted the settings on your monitor to reduce glare and intensity when you look at it, it still reflects the glare of the fluorescent lighting. Put a filter on it to reduce the glare from other lighting sources.

    
4. 5

   Start medication when the first symptom of a migraine occurs. Even though your migraine may be stimulated by the fluorescent lighting in your office, medication may reduce your pain and suffering. Take the medicine before your migraine progresses in severity.

    
5. 6

   Telecommute on days that you are experiencing migraine symptoms. By simply avoiding the glare and flicker of the fluorescent lights, you may alleviate your headache symptoms and reduce the likelihood of it developing into a full-blown migraine.

    
6. 7

   Take breaks often, if allowed by your supervisor. Leave the environment that triggers your migraines to give your body a chance to reset itself. Go outside, sit somewhere dark or just avoid the fluorescent lighting.

    
7. 8

   Replace the fixture if the fluorescent bulbs appear to be flickering. Contact an electrician and request that he replace the old ballast with a new one.

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Green States

Check out this site…how green is your state?

 

http://www.mphonline.org/green-states/

 

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The Lesson of the Butterfly

By Paulo Coelho

 

A man spent hours watching a butterfly struggling to emerge from its cocoon. It managed to make a small hole, but its body was too large to get through it. After a long struggle, it appeared to be exhausted and remained absolutely still.
 
The man decided to help the butterfly and, with a pair of scissors, he cut open the cocoon, thus releasing the butterfly. However, the butterfly’s body was very small and wrinkled and its wings were all crumpled.
 
The man continued to watch, hoping that, at any moment, the butterfly would open its wings and fly away. Nothing happened; in fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its brief life dragging around its shrunken body and shrivelled wings, incapable of flight.
 
What the man – out of kindness and his eagerness to help – had failed to understand was that the tight cocoon and the efforts that the butterfly had to make in order to squeeze out of that tiny hole were Nature’s way of training the butterfly and of strengthening its wings.
 
Sometimes, a little extra effort is precisely what prepares us for the next obstacle to be faced. Anyone who refuses to make that effort, or gets the wrong sort of help, is left unprepared to fight the next battle and never manages to fly off to their destiny.

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New material could lead to cheaper, more eco-friendly LEDs

LED light bulbs may be more energy-efficient and longer-lived than their incandescent equivalents, but they’re also considerably more expensive to purchase. This is largely because rare earth elements (REEs) are used in their phosphors. There are hazards involved in the mining and processing of REEs, plus China is responsible for almost the entire world’s supply, so they’re becoming increasingly pricey. Now, however, scientists have come up with a plentiful alternative material that they say is much more environmentally friendly, and that should drive down the price of LEDs.

 

In regular LED bulbs, the REE-based phosphors are used to soften the LED’s existing blue-ish light. University of Washington spinoff company LumiSands has developed a material that reportedly does the same thing, but that also converts the light to a color temperature closer to that of natural sunlight. What's more, the material is made from cheap, abundant silicon.

 

The company produces the material by etching nanoparticles from a silicon wafer, then embedding them in an ultra-thin membrane. When subsequently exposed to an LED light source, the nanoparticles glow red. The combination of the LED’s own blue light and the red from the silicon results in a soft, warm sun-like light.

 

According to LumiSands co-founder and CEO Chang-Ching Tu, the whole process can be performed in a laboratory, and should be easy to scale up for commercial production.

The company is now looking into methods of getting the nanoparticles to fluoresce in additional colors such as yellow and green, for use in LEDs that emit a neutral white light. It is also in the process of seeking industrial partners, and hopes to begin production in no more than a year.

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Lighting Answers

Great website for all of your lighting questions…

http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/nlpip/lightingAnswers/mwmhl/abstract.asp

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Philips LED Lamp hits 200 Lumens Per Watt

Goodbye fluorescent bulb? Philips says yes.

 

Goodbye fluorescent bulb? Dutch company Philips says LED lamp will soon light up your office

By Toby Sterling, Associated Press | Associated Press – Thu, Apr 11, 2013 7:28 AM EDT.. .

 In this photo provided by Philips on Thursday, April 11, 2013, Rifat Hikmet, a scientist at Philips’ research laboratories in Eindhoven, Netherlands, is photographed holding a prototype of a new tube LED light developed by the company that is capable of generating 200 lumens of white light per watt. Royal Philips NV is set to unveil a new light Thursday that it claims will replace the fluorescent tube lamps that are common in many offices around the world. In an interview with The Associated Press ahead of the unveiling of the new lamp Thursday, Rene van Schooten, a top executive at the company, said the lamp will save energy and money as well as cut pollution.(AP Photo/Philips, HO

AMSTERDAM (AP) — If you've worked in an office, you're probably familiar with the soft glow of fluorescent tubes drifting from the ceiling. If Europe's Philips brand is right, those lamps could soon be history.

Royal Philips NV, the Dutch consumer appliances giant, said Thursday that it has developed an LED light that will soon be far more efficient than the best fluorescents on the market. That should make it cheaper and greener, as well.

It's a combination that will inevitably help the LED dominate the market for illuminating the world's workplaces, according to the global leader in lighting sales.

In an interview with The Associated Press ahead of the unveiling of the new light, a top executive said the prototype LED is headed to mass production and will hit the market in 2015. He claimed that in 10 years, LEDs will replace at least half of the world's fluorescent bulbs, which have been the main source of workplace lighting since shortly after World War II.

"This is a major step forward for the lighting world," said Rene van Schooten, CEO of Philips' light sources division. "It will bring an enormous savings in energy."

Experts outside the Dutch company say they have long expected LEDs to eclipse fluorescents. If Philips' predictions are correct, however, the arrival of the LED in office spaces will come faster than expected.

The potential impact in energy and cost savings, as well as pollution reduction, is significant — though toxic materials are used in manufacturing both fluorescents and LEDs.

Lights suck up more than 15 percent of all energy produced globally, and fluorescent lights currently make up more than half of the total lighting market.

In the United States alone, fluorescents consume about 200 terawatts annually, according to Philips' estimates. Cutting that in half would save $12 billion in electricity costs and lessen carbon dioxide emissions by 60 million metric tons per year, the company said.

Dr. Eugenia Ellis, a professor of engineering and architecture at Drexel University, who works with LED installations, said an efficiency improvement at the level Philips forecasts would be impressive. Cost savings from using LEDs can already be significant: Ellis gave the example of a hospital recently saving $75,000 a year on energy bills by switching.

In recent years, energy-efficient lights made by Philips, Siemens AG, General Electric Co., Cree Inc. and others using LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, have made significant inroads in the home market, replacing many incandescent and halogen bulbs.

But because fluorescent bulbs are themselves highly efficient, LED lights have so far achieved only a small foothold in business and industry. LEDs are competitive in heavy use settings where their longer lifespans and a minor energy edge pay off.

Philips says its new lamp will change all of that. The technical milestone the company claims to have achieved is the ability to produce 200 lumens of light per watt. A lumen is the standard measure of the amount of light a lamp casts in a given area.

According to Mark Hand, a technology expert at Philips competitor Acuity Brands Inc., that's about twice the output per watt of the best fluorescent tubes currently on the market; he estimated the best LED lamps may get up to 120 lumens per watt.

Cree already advertises an LED lamp it says reaches 200 lumens per watt under some circumstances. Van Schooten said the Philips lamp is different. It will be the first on the market that reaches that level of efficiency and functions across a normal range of temperatures and is capable of consistently producing the same amount of warm white colored light as comparable fluorescent tubes.

Essentially, Van Schooten said, "if you walk into the room, you don't say, 'what a funny lamp.'"

U.S. Department of Energy projections published in April 2012 showed the government had expected the industry would only achieve efficiencies of 160 lumens per watt for LED lamps by 2015.

Philips' Van Schooten said that initially, prices of its LED tubes will still be higher than fluorescent lights. But taking into account electricity costs, the increased efficiency in 2015 will make them cheaper to own within a year, as opposed to three years at present.

And further manufacturing savings and efficiency improvements to LED lights will come with each generation of technology.

"The case is rather compelling, but of course it takes some time to replace existing infrastructure," Van Schooten said.

Philips lighting sales in 2012 amounted to 8.4 billion euros ($11 billion) in a total global market that consulting firm McKinsey puts at 70 billion euros.

Acuity Brands' Hand said that Philips' 10-year view may even be pessimistic. Although LEDs currently make up only a small percentage of his company's $1.9 billion in annual sales, he expects that to change quickly.

"LEDs will take over, definitely within 10 years," he said. He predicted that LEDs would make up more than 50 percent of new sales "certainly within 5 years, maybe within three."

Ironically, Philips will both lose and gain from the change: It is not only the largest maker of LEDs, but also of fluorescent tubes.

"Clearly we'll have to phase that out," Van Schooten said. But "we knew this moment was coming for some time." 

 

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