Lights Getting Smarter
While oil companies and public utilities continue to seek the Holy Grail of alternative energy, smaller businesses are quietly developing innovative new ways of reducing power consumption. The latest devices on the market conserve energy by automatically adjusting artificial light during the day. Several promising technologies have emerged.
Daylight Harvesting
Conventional light fixtures always burn at the same intensity. Manual dimmers have been around for a while now, but as the name suggests, they require someone to adjust the brightness by hand as called for during the day. However the newest light fixtures can automatically dim in proportion to the glow from the sun. So now that funky skylight will finally come in handy for something other than leaving a weird fade pattern on the carpet.
A Nebraska company called Axis Technologies has introduced a type of florescent lighting ballast that turns itself down gradually with an increase in sunlight. According to the company their product “allows significant and sustained lighting energy reduction without compromising lighting quality and can be integrated into new and existing fluorescent lighting without special requirements”.
Variable Lighting
American workers often ply their trade in cubicles or small offices with overhead fluorescent lights that stay on all day. Smarter lights that turn off or dim when a workspace occupant leaves use less energy according to a Canadian study.
The study was conducted in partnership with Canada’s Program on Energy Research and Development, Public Works and Government Services Canada, BC Hydro Power Smart, and Ledalite Architectural Products. Three lighting control devices showed promise: occupancy sensors that gradually switch off lights when people leave a work area, light sensors that slowly dim lights when there is enough daylight to maintain illumination levels, and personal lighting controls that workers operate from their computer screens.
Energy Conservation, Light Conservation, Daylight Harvesting
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