The bulb, from a UK startup called Graphene Lighting, ‘Is expected to perform significantly better and last longer than traditional LED bulbs,’ a press release from the UK’s The University of Manchester states (it must be a sign of progress if we can now refer to ‘traditional’ LED bulbs!). ‘It is expected that the graphene lightbulbs will be on the shelves in a matter of months, at a competitive cost.’

That’s a lot of great expectations from the university, which is excited because, for among other reasons, it has a financial stake in Graphene Lighting. The company is a spin-out from the National Graphene Institute, founded at the university with British and European government funding to advance commercial applications of graphene.

Graphene Lighting will coat a bulb’s LED chips with graphene, improving the bulb’s heat removal process, a university spokesperson told Lux. (For those who need reminding: LED bulbs give off light from semiconductors known as light-emitting diodes. And while LEDs are far more efficient than conventional bulbs, they’re still inefficient enough to yield heat that must dissipate).

According to the press release, the graphene leads to ‘lower energy emissions, longer lifetime and lower manufacturing costs.’ The university would not quantify those improvements.

A BBC story  suggested that the bulb will cut energy consumption by 10 per cent over other LED bulbs because it enhances electrical conductivity. The Financial Times (registration may be required), which appears to have broken the story about the bulb, also suggested a 10 per cent improvement.

The university spokesperson told Lux that ‘it’s too early to say,’ whether the 10 per cent figure is accurate.

The BBC story said the bulb uses a filament-shaped LED. The FT said it will be priced lower than the ‘£15 and more’ that it said is typical for comparable dimmable LED bulbs.

Lux has requested an interview with Prof Colin Bailey, a director of Graphene Lighting and deputy president of The University of Manchester, to find out more about the lamp’s workings.

The University of Manchester is the birthplace of graphene. Scientists Sir Andre Geim and Sir Kostya Novoselov first isolated the wonder material there in 2004, an achievement that earned them the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics.

‘This lightbulb shows that graphene products are becoming a reality, just a little more than a decade after it was first isolated – a very short time in scientific terms,’ Prof Bailey said in the press release.

Graphene is a one-atom thin sheet of carbon heralded for having the strength of Superman and conductivity that’s 100 times better than today’s silicon-based semiconductors.

While graphene orginated in the UK, at one point China had shot ahead in the graphene intelllectual property race .

Potential uses span from building materials through energy and electronics, including semiconductors, solar cells and of course, light bulbs. The BBC noted that it is already used in tennis rackets and skis.

Two years ago, researchers in South Korea and Vietnam said that graphene would help dissipate heat from LED bulbs, and which would help make bulbs brighter.

Graphene Lighting appears close to delivering a graphene lamp. They’ll be under pressure to come through, lest they deflate expectations.

Visit Novel Energy Lighting to explore all your LED lamp and bulb needs

—

Photo is from The University of Manchester

Lux Reports: Retailers are using light as a branding tool. Primark has opted for a bright feel while the opposite approach is popular with retailers such as Hollister and Desigual. Image credit: Primark

Building brands, driving sales, controlling costs, and preserving the all-important ‘look and feel’… who said retail lighting was easy? Here are the eight biggest trends influencing retail lighting in 2015.

1. Energy Saving LED Retrofits:

Retail was one of the first sectors to start dabbling in LED lighting, because of the big energy savings that can be made by replacing electricity-guzzling halogen spotlights. Major retailers are announcing big new rollouts nearly every day: Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Next, Walmart… but it’s still a small minority of stores that have switched to the new technology, and it’s mainly the bigger chains with significant resources and economies of scale behind them. In time, though, it seems inevitable that LED will be everywhere.

OUTLOOK: Loads of shops have already gone LED but there are plenty left – especially the smaller ones.

2. Branding with light:

 

With stiff competition from online shopping, bricks-and-mortar retailers are having to reinvent their stores as a place where consumers can experience the brands and the product. And they’re learning to use light as one of the most effective ways to become distinctive and recognisable – each in their own way. From Hollister to Primark, light is becoming part of what makes brands what they are.

OUTLOOK: This is a trend the lighting business is well placed to cash in on.

3. New colour technology:

 

Colour has always been key in retail lighting. Many buyers still assume that going LED means compromising on colour quality; but if you avoid the cheap rubbish, it doesn’t have to be so. Halogen has long been the benchmark for colour quality, but in fact many LED products are now outperforming halogen and the latest colour technologies use specially tuned light to keep whites clean while making certain colours even more vivid

OUTLOOK: LED spent a long time proving its adequacy. Get set for it to start fulfilling its real potential.

4. Lights that do new things:

 

What if lights could guide you around a shop and send you special offers when you’re looking at particular items? Well, now they can, thanks to super-accurate positioning systems powered by LED lights. It’s done by modulating light in a way the human eye can’t see, but that can be picked up by the cameras in shoppers’ mobile phones. The light from each luminaire carries a unique code, which the phone uses to pinpoint its position. EldoLED is already installing its Lux Award-winning positioning system at retail sites in the US, GE has several trials under way at retail sites in the US and Europe, and Philips is trialling its system at a museum in the Netherlands.

OUTLOOK: We’ve yet to see it in a real-life retail application, but we’re very excited about it.

5. The flight to quality:

 

We’ve all seen heartbreaking examples of poor-quality LEDs in retail. A well-meaning store manager has tried to save money on energy and maintenance, and now the shop is dim, all the clothes look washed out and the customers feel like zombies. Those days are coming to an end: the wild west of the LED market is being tamed, and even those buyers who had their fingers burned (literally or figuratively) in the early days are trying again, with a renewed focus on look and feel.

OUTLOOK: Some scepticism remains, but LED is winning new friends daily.

6.Overcoming the fear:

 

Retailers can’t afford to get the look and feel wrong, so LED rollouts tend to be nerve-wracking. There is always a certain risk when you invest in new technology. And with no real standards for LED lighting products, we might just have to embrace that risk. With warranties, funding and improved quality, it’s getting easier, but there’s still inertia – partly the result of bad experiences, uncertainty or mistrust over exaggerated energy-saving and lifetime claims made by manufacturers.

OUTLOOK: Lighting refits are never simple, but more and more people are at it, giving buyers confidence – and it’s getting easier by the day. 7. 

 Justifying the spend:

 

It’s easy enough to prove the environmental benefits of an LED upgrade, but sadly that’s not always enough to persuade the finance department to approve the upfront expenses associated with a new lighting scheme. Imagine how much easier it would be if you could prove the correlation between better lighting and increased sales. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to separate the lighting from the myriad of other variables that influence people’s shopping decisions. As Simon Waldron, Sainsbury’s electrical engineering manager, told Lux: ‘The controllability of variables is missing. We need a standardised approach to proving the link between lighting and sales which at the moment can’t be applied.’

 Lux spoke to Bera to find out how he plans to make the lighting in the prestigious, 200-year-old building more efficient.

Bera: We’ve got a lot of different systems and it is difficult to keep enough stock because a lot is custom-made. That forces me to plan ahead and to create stocks of critical spares so any issues would have as little disruption to the hotel’s operations as possible.

We’ve got chandeliers in the main reception that use incandescent candles, which also comes with challenges: I am looking at replacing these bulbs which are energy hungry and more and more difficult to source but I cannot just replace them with anything. This is one of the first features our many guests will see so it has to look in tone with the rest of the art deco style of our lobby. It’s easier to be creative and to focus on energy efficiency in the back of house areas.

We’re replacing all the filament lighting in our suites with LEDs. The project is still in the early stages and I’m experimenting with different LED manufacturers. With this kind of major refurbishment project, we use lighting designers who will specify the best fittings to meet the operational requirements and also the best lighting outputs.

We’ve got 197 guest bedrooms and the amount of lighting will vary from 10 to 50 light fittings per room. In all our latest rooms, the lighting is 100 per cent LED, from the strips in the pelmets and the wardrobes, to the candles in the bedside tables, the GLS in the standing lamps and the spot lights. At this stage, about 50 bedrooms are fully lit with LEDs, so we still have a long way to go.

There is not a set target in regards to energy saving. The aim is to ensure that we do not compromise on quality and that we do this in the most sustainable way possible. Then, it is up to me to propose projects to accomplish that. I obviously ensure that the energy is not wasted by having a strict maintenance program but this is not enough, we need to be as proactive as possible to ensure we remain at the top of the game.

It’s relatively easy if payback is short. Any investment that would take longer than three years to pay for itself would be difficult to justify and anything that would take less than two years would always be preferential. A business case needs to be submitted to show and justify the return on investment. This requires a lot of research and months of trials. That also gives us the time to negotiate with our lighting provider to make sure that we get the best products at the best price.

In my opinion, many people had a bad first impression of LEDs when they were at their developing stages. This is slowly changing but it is up to us, facility managers, to change this by shortlisting the best possible applications, showing the difference in regards to the ‘feel’ LED can provide, the energy consumption and the associated CO2 emission reduction. This is important and this is why this process is so lengthy.

When we’re satisfied with the lighting products, we have to do a whole bedroom in one go. We’ll do a survey first to ensure we know exactly what is required, place the order, block the room off and then go in one day and replace all the lighting. Once the room has been converted, we would leave it for a couple of months to gain additional feedback from the rest of the team, from the guests and from the hotel management team before we move on to the other rooms.

For the corridors, the same process applies but the work would be carried out at night when we would convert the corridor into sections, which can take up to two or three nights. This is to ensure that the task doesn’t affect the operations of the hotel or disturb our guests.

Façade lighting is another project that I am working on. The hotel is a listed building and its architecture is spectacular. It deserves the best façade lighting we can obtain. There are, of course, different ways to achieve this and everything we do has to be submitted to the authorities to gain the mandatory planning permissions.

At the moment I am at the design stage where I am reviewing with a lighting consultant how we can achieve the best results. In previous Lux editions, there have been a lot of interesting case studies, especially the feature on the Science Museum façade lighting replacement. The result was amazing and it was interesting to see their process.

Novel Energy Lighting supplies LED lighting to hotels and the hospitality sector. Please call (T: 0208-540-8287) or visit us today to discuss your needs.

The building’s long history, and its 18 meter high ceiling, presented the facility team with a challenge of respecting its heritage while ensuring that the fixtures were as easy to maintain as possible.

This has been achieved mainly with linear LED luminaires, recessed from existing ceiling pockets, which focus the light down the central spine of the building’s three-storey glazed atrium.

Lighting designers kept in close contact with Heritage Victoria throughout the project and ensured that the lighting installation was fully reversible and didn’t do any damage to the building surface.

As well as recessed ceiling fixtures, linear LED luminaires have been placed high up to uplight the ceiling and emphasise the columns and the geometric shape of the atrium.

Lower down, mannequins sitting on swings and posing on podiums are lit with narrow-beam metal halide spotlights. The spotlights are placed in pairs on the columns around the atrium with linear LED uplights positioned in-between the spotlights to highlight the top part of the columns above.

The arcade arches around the building are lit with linear LED fixtures concealed within the structure. All light sources are warm white with a colour temperature of 3000k.

Using mainly LED light sources means the store has achieved an electrical load of 12W/m2 for the downward light and 10W/m2 for the architectural lighting to the arches, trees and ceiling structure.

 Novel Energy Lighting supplies LED lamps, fittings, and controls for many retail applications. Contact us for volume quotes or for lighting designs: www.novelenergylighting.com, or Tel: 02085408287

See the stunning, circular lighting concept in the Waldorf Astoria in Berlin, and find out why LED products take a central place in Trilux’s approach to lighting.

Lux reports from the Trilux stand at LuxLive 2014, to see the company’s latest lighting innovations and hear about what they’re seeing in the market.

Lux Reports: ROME – If you’ve been to the Sistine Chapel, you probably recall the crick in your neck and the strain on your eyes as you gazed upwards to spot Michelangelo’s ceiling.

Strain no more.

The Vatican will today officially switch on 50 new luminaires containing 7,000 LEDs that illuminate masterpieces such as The Creation of Adam and The Last Judgement in a way that brings the paintings and frescoes into full, clear and colourful view, as was evident at a press preview last night.

‘We want to honour the 450th anniversary of Michelangelo’s death by providing new lighting for his work,’ said Prof Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museums.

The great artist would probably be proud of the project, led by Germany’s Osram, which said the new LEDs provide ten times the brightness of previous lighting, while slashing energy consumption by 90 percent.

What was the most difficult aspect of the two-year job? ‘To prove that the light was not harmful for the art,’ said Martin Reuter, senior technical project manager at Osram, speaking to Lux at the event.

In order to be kindler and gentler to the paintings, the company did not use phosphor-coated white light, but instead used of a mix of blue, red and green LEDs. Osram sent original pigments for the ceiling, which Michelangelo completed in 1512, to Hungary’s Pannonian Univeristy for testing. Pannonian gave the all-clear after a year.

Other partners included Barcelona’s Instituit de Recerca en Energia, which investigated the energy reductions, and Rome-based lighting designer Faber Technica.

The European Commission helped fund the partners (the money did not go straight to the Vatican, as the Vatican is not part of the EU). The parties have not revealed the cost of the project. But the results speak for themselves, as the photo above shows.

Novel Energy Lighting has provided LED lighting for many churches here in the UK – contact us for details for your upgrade to LED, to save up to 90% energy

—

Optics in the classic bulb-shaped lamps in the new OSRAM LED portfolio have been designed to largely exclude irregularities such as dark shadow lines in the far field light and to achieve homogeneous light distribution, achieved by the particular form of the plastic optic, developed specifically for the new lamp generation.

The optic design was challenging due to the high technical and aesthetic demands, and was developed with the aid of in-house programmed software. Optics in the new OSRAM LED classic portfolio radiate at angles of up to 300° and are based on a uniform optical concept across all lamp types.

This achieves a uniform design appearance, and also shorter development periods and lower costs because the optics of various lamp types are compatible with identical mechanical components. This modular construction principle has been consistently applied by OSRAM to all components in its new LED lamp portfolio.

Visit novelenergylighting.com for all your LED needs. We sell a range of Osram LED and others.

From domestic households and the catering sector to industrial applications – light emitting diodes (LED) are becoming ever more popular, because high quality LEDs in particular from renowned manufacturers such as the lighting expert Osram feature significant benefits compared to standard light sources.

They feature good colour rendering, high energy efficiency and durability, consequently reducing running costs such as power overheads or replacement costs.

The structure and principal of LEDs

Light emitting diodes consist of several layers of semiconductor material that generate light upon the application of DC voltage. In contrast to incandescent lamps an LED is a monochromatic light source, and according to its composition emits light with a specific colour. White-emitting LEDs also initially generate monochromatic light that must then be converted, and this is usually achieved with a combination of blue LEDs with a yellowish phosphor layer or by mixing the light of red, green and blue LEDs (RGB). Furthermore, specific RGB colours can be mixed to create an infinite number of colour tones by varying the mixing ratios. 

PET PCBs for greater flexibility

Typical LED modules consist of several combined LEDs, a fixed PCB and various other components. A practical alternative to fixed fibreglass PCBs are flexible materials based on polymers, as these enable the production of LED modules with a high diversity of forms, in turn opening the way to new designs and lighting solutions. Flexible light engines can also be manufactured on rolls, providing simpler handling as well as automatic manufacturing and the reduction of stock keeping overheads.

A robust, non-conductive material with a high optical reflection factor is ideal for producing such flexible PCBs, and the material should also be environmentally compatible and chemically stable. Such requirements are best fulfilled with polyethylene terephthalate (PET) versions. With regard to these advantages, the lighting manufacturer Osram developed its PrevaLED Flex Linear light engine that fully exploits the benefits of flexible PET PCBs. The light engine consists of a thin and pliable copper layer in which the requisite circuit has been etched and sealed between two PET layers. 

An efficient direct current solution

Due to the electrical properties of LEDs, their drivers should directly supply a constant current to the module. The reason for this is that in contrast to LED systems requiring constant voltage, other current control components on the module are not needed with systems supplied by constant current directly from the LED driver. This provides efficiency increases of 5 to 15 per cent. A sophisticated system for grouping and mixing the various LEDs (various bins) is used to achieve homogeneous voltage distribution in the LED lines various (also switched in parallel) with simultaneous constant current operation, thereby also avoiding brightness and colour deviations within the partly long and flexible systems. This in turn enables a uniform distribution of light colour and brightness, across each section and the complete module.

Light on a strip

In addition to flexibility, a special benefit of the strip solution is cutting the strip to suit the desired length, enabled by switching the LEDs in parallel. With the Osram PrevaLED for example, the strip can be cut after each segment without the module forfeiting any quality of light. One segment has a length of either 93.3 mm equipped with 10 LEDs or 140 mm with 12 LEDs, and the length itself is restricted merely by the supply of current, which must be as homogeneous as possible for all LEDs to create light with high uniformity. In this regard the distance between the current source and the LED is an important factor – the maximal length of a flexible LED module with single-sided power input is currently 1.5 metres, and module lengths of three metres can be achieved with central power input. As a consequence, the length of the light strip can be individually modified between approximately 10 cm and three metres, and installations that previously required the back-to-back switching of several modules can now be produced as one unit. 

PrevaLED also cuts installation costs by up to 30% compared to standard lighting solutions. The LED strip can be bonded simply into luminaires or luminous elements, enabling the saving of valuable work time. The broad flexibility of PrevaLED comes to the fore during simple installation and the implementation of sophisticated design projects, and the PET strip can for example be bent to form a circle with a radius of just 15 cm. With a colour temperature of 4000 Kelvin, a good colour rendering index of over 80 and up to 170 lumens per watt, PrevaLED Flex is not only a genuine alternative to fluorescent tubes but also opens up new possibilities for designing light.

PrevaLED Flex module. The flexible LED strip can be cut-to-suit after each segment to achieve precisely the required length.

New designs can be simply implemented with flexible PrevaLED Flex modules.

Light with savings potential

With regard to power consumption, the emission of greenhouse gases and maintenance costs, LEDs from quality suppliers such as Osram offer high potential for savings without any sacrifices in terms of light quality. If the significantly longer lifespans are also considered, the total calculation is distinctly positive. When upgrading to LEDs, power costs according to the specific system solution can be cut by up to 80%. Incandescent lamps in this regard are characterised by an efficiency of around 10 lm/W, halogen lamps have approximately 20 lm/W and fluorescent sources have 70 to 90 lm/W. Comparable white LEDs achieve an efficiency of between 70 and 100 lumens per watt according to type and light colour, with LED power consumption (according to type) being merely 0.1 to 15 watts. This means that even highly compact LEDs provide powerful lighting.

It’s a question of quality

In order to exploit the complete spectrum of advantages inherent in LED technology, when selecting the appropriate light source this mainly concerns the quality of components. The light source manufacturer Osram has upgraded its portfolio, helping consumers to more simply identify high quality LEDs at a glance, and will present its largest LED lamp spectrum until now in the Autumn of 2014. More than 90 LED lamp types will be available in the retail market with easy to recognise, uniform designs, and the consistent look of the popular candle, drop-shaped and mainly pear-shaped classic LED lamps will be characterised primarily by their smooth, white heat sinks. The uniform designs of the Osram lamps go beyond similar appearances to also provide a highly practical aspect – all lamps are based on identical modules used in different lamps.

Retrofit lamps are especially suitable for refurbishing classic lighting systems to energy efficient and durable LED technology. An example are lamps from the Osram Classic A40 series, featuring construction sizes and bases identical to classic incandescent lamps to enable easy replacement.

Light without shadowing

Decisive for the success of a lighting technology is whether the light from a lamp is perceived as being pleasant. This in turn depends on various factors, for example colour temperature and luminous intensity. The distribution of luminous intensity in the so-called far field is also important, meaning where light hits walls, floors or table surfaces for example. Of special importance in this respect is that light is distributed homogeneously and that minimum shadowing or linear structures are seen. The optics within LED lamps are responsible for this task. Because such optics can be seen from the outside with clear lamps, these are not only a functional element but must also be visually attractive. The optic also ensures that the “technology” of the lamp, meaning its LEDs and electronics, cannot be seen from the outside. 

Optics in the classic bulb-shaped lamps in the new Osram LED portfolio have been designed to largely exclude irregularities such as dark shadow lines in far field light and to achieve homogeneous light distribution, and this is achieved by the particular form of the plastic optic developed specifically for the new lamp generation. The design of the optic was developed with the aid of in-house programmed software due to these stringent technical and aesthetic requirements. Optics in the new Osram LED portfolio radiate at beam angles of up to 300° and also achieve a high level of uniformity in illumination. 

Retrofit lamp from the new Osram portfolio.

Highly diverse lighting solutions

In addition to high levels of efficiency, the inherent diversity of the compact diodes is also advantageous, ranging from applications for video walls in sports arenas to the illumination of refrigerators. Because of their specific properties such as low heat generation and flat constructions, LEDs can be used in locations where other luminaires may only be installed in compliance with strict conditions – such as in fire protection applications. LEDs also generate no infrared or ultraviolet radiation, making them ideal for use in foodstuff counters and hospitals, and thanks to their tough constructions, LEDs are the ideal light source for applications exposed to high loads such as in the automotive sector. Osram LEDs also achieve very good colour rendering values of up to Ra 95.

Novel Energy Lighting sells a range of Osram LED products. One of the more popular lamps is the Osram LED Star GU10 6.5W Dimmable.