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Jun/15

5

New lighting Paradigm

Philips LED: The behavior of light, shows how easily programmable “light behaviors” can enhance the role lighting plays in supporting our everyday activities, indoors as well as outdoors, and for both personal and public applications.
New forms of light, focuses on innovations that are revolutionizing the way in which spaces are lit, de-cluttering the lighting infrastructure and providing new visual and even acoustic experiences, through the use of textiles and connected light sources.
#lightingwebinars #lightingacademy

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LED floodlights make Hull City's stadium ready for HDTV filming and new kinds of events | Photo: James Russell via Flickr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LUX reports: Premier League football club Hull City is planning to upgrade its pitch lighting to LED floodlights this summer. The move is aimed at meeting the needs of modern high-definition TV broadcasting as well as opening up the KC Stadium to a wider range of events.

Hull is the third Premier League club (at least it’s a Premier League club for now – relegation was on the cards at the time of publication) to adopt LED lighting for its stadium, after Southampton and Chelsea. With the technology getting cheaper and more powerful all the time, others are bound to follow.

It has opted for Philips’ ArenaVision LED floodlighting system, which has been specially developed to meet the TV broadcast requirements specified by the Premier League. It can also provide the entertaining lighting effects needed to build atmosphere and excitement before and after matches.

The lighting will be installed at the KC Stadium during this summer’s break in time for the start of the next season.

The main objective of going LED is to keep pace with the evolving needs of sports broadcasters, who require natural, flicker-free lighting to cope with high-definition super-slow motion.

LEDs are increasingly taking over from metal halide as the floodlighting source of choice. LED technology allows sports stadiums to use lighting in a more creative way, making them attractive venues for events such as concerts. Control systems allow individual floodlights to be switched on or off or dimmed. Systems such as Philips’ ArenaVision makes it possible to create pre-set light scenes for specific applications, such as dimmed energy-saving levels for cleaning and maintenance.

John North, managing director of the Stadium Management Company, said: ‘The new state-of-the-art, energy-efficient LED pitch lighting system for the KC Stadium delivers the ability to instantly change from one light setting from another. This is not just a game changer for spectators but also for the future of the modern multi-purpose stadium, a key feature of the operational strategy for our sporting venues.’

Hull will also benefit from the maintenance savings accruing from the long life of LEDs. Typically, metal halide floodlighting lamps should be replaced every three seasons to maintain the lighting levels required. The Philips LED system is expected to last more than 10 seasons.

Andy Gowen, director of public lighting at Philips Lighting UK, commented: ‘The main priority for professional sports venues has always been to ensure the correct light levels on the pitch, but with the arrival of the digital age, there is a great deal more on offer.

‘Our ArenaVision LED floodlighting bridges the worlds of entertainment lighting and static, high quality pitch lighting to deliver a memorable experience for visitors, whether they are coming to watch Hull in action or to hear their favourite bands perform.’

Novel Energy Lighting distributes the full range of Philips LED products, including ArenaVision LED. Contact us to discuss your project, and to explore our range of LED solutions. T: 0208-540-8287, E: sales@novelenergylighting.com

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Something for everyone: Whether your eyes are fresh out of university, or approaching retirement, Philips Connected Lighting allows you to adjust the office lighting to your needs. Photo is from pcruciatti via Shutterstock

LUX reports: Age discrimination aside, a typical office might house workers ranging from their twenties through sixties. And while it’s no secret that the average set of eyes on a young adult typically functions better than those on an older colleague, office and lighting designers have long ignored the difference.

Enough of that, says Philips, which is calling for ‘personalised lighting in your workplace’ to assure that employees of all ages work under the correct, individualised lighting conditions that allow them not only see (what a concept!) but, even better, to produce.

It’s part of the Dutch giant’s efforts to market its ‘Connected Lighting for offices’, which it first introduced a year ago and which it has showcased at The Edge, the environmentally heralded Amsterdam offices of consulting firm Deloitte. The system allows workers to use smartphone apps that adjust overhead lights individually. The lights are connected to an ethernet network, with each light having its own internet address.

‘A 45+ worker tends to need almost double the light needed by a 20 year old for everyday tasks,’ the Dutch lighting gaint says in a press release. ‘The one-light-for-all principle is outdated at a time when we are all living and working longer. Today 30-50 per cent of people in work are over 45 years old…Over the age of 45, people begin to experience a deterioration of their near-sight vision. Research  shows, a 60-year-old person needs between two and five times as much light as a 20-year-old to see the same visual detail, let alone to concentrate.’

The wrong lighting could even undermine health and productivity, Philips says.

‘People often call off sick due to headaches and fatigue,’ notes Bianca van der Zande, principle scientist at Philips Lighting. ‘These symptoms may have many underlying causes but perhaps one of these could be the result of prolonged eye-strain due to poor lighting conditions in their working lives. Inadequate lighting can lead to visual discomfort, neck pain, headaches, fatigue  and perhaps eventually sick leave.’

A 2013 survey by Philips found that 90 per cent of people who could adjust desk lamps for brightness and colour temperature reported ‘sharper vision, optimum eye comfort, (and) the ability to see smaller details and improved contrast.’ It was a bit of a foregone conclusion, but the idea now is that ethernet-connected, app-controlled overhead lights can deliver the same benefits.

Philips is also calling for government regulations to mandate individualised lighting.

‘Regulatory bodies should take these findings into account for the well-being and productivity of today’s workforce,” says van der Zande.

‘People spend 80-90 per cent of their time indoors from which around 20 per cent is spent at work so the indoor environment determines to a large extent the comfort and wellbeing of the office employee, influencing their performance. It is important that human-centric lighting becomes a part of the regulatory standards, allowing architects and building designers to advise for the best solutions – not only for offices, but for all building environments.’

At long last, harmony across the generations? That would be a story for the ages.

Visit us at Novel Energy Lighting to discuss your office lighting refit, we offer the full Philips range and can provide lighting design advice as needed

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Royal Philips has, through its Lighting Division, completed the upgrade of 10 ships for Europe’s leading holiday cruise company, Costa Cruises. More than 300,000 Philips LED lights have been installed to enable a massive 60% reduction in the energy used to power each ship’s lighting. By James Hunt:

Philips has installed MasterLED spots and CoreProLED tubes installed on 10 Costa Cruises’ ships – saving large amounts of fuel, money and carbon emissions.

Costa Cruises

This interior shot of Costa Fascinosa shows just how much lighting there is in a modern cruise liner – the energy savings can be big using LED lighting.

Costa Cruises & AP

In modern cruise ships, lighting systems account for up to 25% of the total energy consumption that is not used for propulsion. Therefore, any reduction in electricity consumption for lighting reduces the vessel’s operating costs, as well as reducing the environmental impact.
Electricity aboard these big cruise ships is provided by the diesel engines and generators – no direct drive to the screws these days. Typically, Costa Cruises’ ships are powered by diesel-electric power plant comprising four to six 12-cylinder four-stroke medium speed diesel generating sets (usually by Wartsila with electric propulsion motors by GE of around 21MW coupled to fixed-pitch propellers – though some ships use azipod thrusters instead).
A typical output, depending upon the actual ship, might be around 70 – 80MW (over 100,000 BHP). As well as providing propulsion, these main generators provide power for all shipboard consumers from propulsion motors to hotel functions, such as lighting and air conditioning.
Regardless of the propulsion system used, fuel consumption cost is always a big issue with cruise ships and Costa, for example, has reported a reduction of around 11% in fuel consumption, and with reduced CO2 emissions too. The company has already experimented with LED lighting combined with automatic lighting-control that adjusts light levels to match sunlight intensity.
Slashing carbon emissions
It is here, of course, that Philips comes in, with its over 300,000 LED lights being installed in ten of Costa Cruises’ ships. This lighting renovation enables total annual savings of 30,000 tonnes in CO2 emissions.
It is only relatively recently that the shipping industry has had to meet increasingly tough emissions targets, and the switch to energy efficient LED technology is the latest step towards Costa Cruises’ goal to slash its CO2 emissions according to targets it set out in its Sustainability Report published in 2014.
LED spots and tubes
Philips’ MasterLED spots and CoreProLED tubes installed on these ten cruise ships emit excellent quality white light that does not irritate or tire the eyes. Moreover, the LED light sources last far longer than the older conventional lamps (up to 40,000 hours), so maintenance costs are reduced, while the lighting itself is bright and warm and provides an inviting atmosphere for passengers.
Philips completed the re-lamping of three ships back in 2013, with the lighting of the remaining seven ships completely renovated by December 2014. Philips is also involved in the LED lighting renovation of Costa Cruises’ headquarters in Genoa, Italy.
Cruise ships operate with big fixed costs, so Costa Cruises’ aim as an operator is always to maximise efficiency. Fuel is one of the biggest costs, and prices have soared over the last few years (the fall in price in 2014 is unlikely to be sustained for long) so the company is keen to keep associated expenditure under careful control.
A sustainability boost
Commented Stefania Lallai, Costa Cruises Sustainability Director: “This initiative between two companies engaged in providing solutions for the mitigation of the impact on the environment represents another step forward by Costa Cruises in the field of sustainability. The lighting project with Philips is an important initiative undertaken to lower the CO2 impact generated by our fleet and to reduce energy consumption on board.”
Philips has long had an important emphasis on sustainability. For example, we reported only a few days ago that in its continued sustainability drive, the company had increased its sales of ‘Green Products’ to 52% of total sales and has achieved its ‘Green Innovation’ target a year ahead of schedule (read about this by using the link at the bottom of this web page).
In terms of Costa Cruises, the Head of Sustainability for Philips Lighting, Nicola Kimm, said: “Travel by sea already has the lowest carbon footprint compared to other forms of transport in the wider tourism industry.
‘’Think of cruise ships as self-contained mini floating cities, powered by their own energy supply. Switching from 50W bulbs to 7W LED technology increases energy efficiency by more than halving each ship’s electricity consumption required for lighting,’’ she pointed out.
There is, however, one Costa Cruises ship that won’t be benefitting from Philips LED lighting – the ill-fated Costa Concordia that sank in early 2012.
Visit us at Novel Energy Lighting to browse our range of Philips LED products, including the MasterLED GU10 lamps and Master and Corepro LED tubes.

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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.’

OUTLOOK: Don’t hold your breath for a concrete link between lighting and improved sales… but that won’t stop people looking.

8. Clients are smartening up:

Manufacturers have tried to fight LED specticism with product warranties. But the terms are usually written to protect them just as much as their clients – defining and limiting what they have to do if something goes wrong. In a lot of cases, what a warranty promises doesn’t go very far to resolving a client’s immediate problems. If your lighting installation doesn’t work, it’s not much help to ship them all back to China and wait for new ones. So clients are pushing for their own warranty terms. Like Sainsbury’s, which told manufacturers supplying kit for its ongoing LED rollout what their warranties had to say.

OUTLOOK: As trust and quality improve, and the market becomes accustomed to longer-lasting products, this issue may fade. But for now, manufacturers should expect to be kept on their toes.

Contact us for your new retail lighting project. We sell a range of LED fittingsfixtures, and lamps for the retail and hospitality sector. Call us on 0208-540-8287, or email: sales@novelenergylighting.com

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Coming to a Woolworths car park near you: the retailer is planning to roll out its LED lighting scheme to other stores following the massive energy savings it achieved in Coorparoo.

LUX reports: Compared to other conventional lighting solutions, T5 is still seen by some as too efficient for the facilities team to justify upgrading to an LED lighting system. But combined with controls, even the leap from T5 fluorescent lighting to LED can yield significant savings.
Woolworths is a case in point; the retailer’s branch in the South Eastern Brisbane suburb of Coorparoo managed to save 77 per cent energy in its car park area with LEDs and occupation sensors, and earned a Peak Load Reduction Reward for its efforts.
One of the reasons the management was looking for a new solution was the amount of hours the light was on in the car park. The T5 fittings, which had an average life span of two years, were on all day and night, with no control system in place.
The entry to the car part was lit with twin 28W T5 fittings which had been retrofitted in 2012.
When most of the T5s predictably started to fail at the same time, James Dwyer of Jones Lang Lasalle (JLL), which has a national building management contract for Shopping Centres Australia’s 77 retail assets, investigated lighting upgrade options. Dwyer was looking for a solution that would last longer than the T5s and save Woolworths the costs of frequent lamp replacements and maintenance.
The JLL team had recently completed a fire stair and car park lighting upgrade at CP1, a commercial office tower in Brisbane, where LEDs were installed. The positive feedback from the building manager there helped convince Shopping Centres Australia, the owners of Woolworths, that LED was the way forward.
Lighting manufacturer Enlighten helped Dwyer complete an unbudgeted capital expense application and detailed return on investment projection, which ‘impressed the owners and ensured that my application was approved,’ Dwyer said.
Dwyer opted for Enlighten’s Chameleon light fitting, which is built for long-lit areas such as fire stairs, car parks and back of house areas.
No more wasted light
Most of the new LED fittings will only be on when needed, thanks to an in-built motion sensor which instantly switches the light from the standby 8W light output to the full 35W output for a set period of time which can vary between 15 seconds and five minutes. When the set time ends, the light output returns to standby mode.
A 90W 2 module Cetus LED low bay light from Enlighten was installed in the car park entry. This fitting actually represented a net increase in energy consumption compared to the existing T5 fixture (68W including ballast), but it was necessary to improve the light levels in this area.
All lights were replaced on a one for one basis, with each parking bays having a standard 12 chip bulk head installed. The fittings lighting the driveways are permanently on, and the ones approaching a turn have side-emitting optical lenses to ensure good visibility.
An extra incentive
Coorparoo’s Woolworths is located in an area with electricity supply constraints, which means it qualified for a Peak Load Reduction Reward. Energy-saving scheme Energex rewards businesses within the area that contribute to reducing demand on the network during peak periods by replacing lighting with more energy efficient lighting. The reward payment given to Woolworths is estimated to be $500 for this upgrade.
The savings in numbers
The new LED lighting will save an estimated 77per cent energy in the car park area, which equates to 30,504 kWh per year. The project capital cost was $21,250 after the incentive payment, with a project payback calculation from energy and maintenance savings of 2.7 years.
According to Dwyer, the project has been well received. ‘The Chamaeleon fitting is perfectly suited to our undercover car park operation and I have received an immense amount of positive feedback from the tenants,’ he said.
Dwyer is planning to retrofit another shopping centre’s undercover carpark lighting with in early 2015.
Novel Energy Lighting specialises in LED Tubes, and LED IP65 fittings for business lighting retrofits. Speak to us today to understand the energy savings and explore financing which can be repaid through the energy cost savings.

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LUX Reports: Hadrien Bera leads a team of 20 engineers responsible for the overall asset management of London’s grand hotel Claridge’s in Mayfair. It’s a challenging role; requirements to save energy aren’t easy to balance with the need to maintain the look and feel of a lavish Grade II listed building with art deco interiors, frequented by the royals and sometimes referred to as the ‘annexe to Buckingham Palace’.

 Lux spoke to Bera to find out how he plans to make the lighting in the prestigious, 200-year-old building more efficient.
1423146895_hadrien_bera_001_edited_LR
Lux: What are the biggest lighting challenges you face at Claridges?
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.
Have you had much experience using LED technology?
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.
Do you have energy reduction targets?
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.
Is it difficult to justify investments in energy-efficient lighting?
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.
How do you go about installing new lights without disturbing guests?
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.
What other lighting plans do you have for Claridges?
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.

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Afterglow: This tone from a halogen lamp could soon fade into history if the EC sticks with its 2016 ban on one of the last vestiges of the incandescent business – halogens.

LUX Reports: Neonlite director Fred Bass argues against the industry’s case to keep energy guzzling halogens alive, calling such a move ‘nonsensical.’

Sometime in the next few weeks, the European Commission is expected to vote on whether to delay a ban on halogen lamps. Halogens are the last real bastion of incandescent technology. They are a thriving holdover of conventional filament burning bulbs – superior in many ways to standard filament lamps because they are treated with a halogen gas, improving their colour temperature and their efficiency.

Although the industry has long promoted them for their so-called ‘eco’ benefits, they are only slightly more efficient than the conventional filament bulbs that the EC has already widely banished. They are terribly inefficient compared to modern LED (light-emitting diode) and CFL (compact fluorescent) bulbs. Thus, halogens are carbon culprits. That’s why the EC in 2009 scheduled them for a September 2016 retirement.

The conventional lighting industry, represented by the Brussels-based trade body LightingEurope, is now campaigning for a stay of halogen’s execution. It wants to push the halogen ban out by another four years – to 2020, nearly six years from now. It seems stuck between a rock and hard place: While it tries itself to steer consumers toward an LED future, it claims that quality, performance and price of LEDs will not be ready to meet mass consumer demand until 2020. Europeans today are buying more halogens than anything – more even than CFLs it notes, warning of a bulb shortage if the ban takes hold. As good as LEDs are, they just aren’t ready yet to provide the same quality of light as halogen at an affordable price, nor will they be by 2016, LightingEurope claims. It notes that LEDs lamps are still too different from conventional lamps in appearance, price and quality, and that this difference is confusing consumers.

‘Nonsense,’ say LightingEurope’s critics. LEDs have arrived, are more than ready for prime time, and the sooner the better from an environmental perspective. The conventional industry has had already had half a dozen years to prepare for the ban, which, ironically, it lobbied for itself in the first place. If the big traditional lighting companies like Philips, Osram and GE can’t meet LED demand, then the newfangled companies born in the CFL and LED era can – companies such as Aurora, Neonlite, TCP, LIFX, Opple, Cree, Acuity – they note. Some suggest that the big companies are simply trying to hold onto their old ‘replacement bulb’ business model for as long as possible while they make the difficult transition to LEDs, which vendors say last for 20 years.

Lux recently spoke at length with two leading voices on opposite sides of the issue: Diederik de Stoppelaar, secretary general of LightingEurope, and Fred Bass, a director of Hong Kong-based Neonlite and managing director of its UK-based Neonlite International group, which includes the Megaman brand of LED lamps. Neonlite has no incandescent legacy. It started life some 20 years ago as a CFL company, and today about 90 percent of its business is in LEDs. Bass firmly opposes any delay to the halogen ban.

Bass (pictured, right) and de Stoppelaar are not completely at odds. They agree that the industry must weed out inferior LED products that are tarnishing the technology’s reputation. They also implore the industry to clear up the confusion surrounding the relative merits of the different lamp technologies – confusion that the industry itself fosters through loose, or at least non-uniform, performance claims via packaging and merchandising.

But they couldn’t be further apart on the subject of the ban. In a two-part series, we bring you an edited version of our questions and answers with de Stoppelaar and Bass. Yesterday, de Stoppelaar made the case for delaying the ban until 2020. Today, Bass lays out why the EC should stick to its guns and just get on with the ban as planned:

Lux: The halogen ban is set for 2016, the EC is voting on pushing it back to 2018, and LightingEurope says that’s not even long enough of an extension. They want 2020. What’s your take on all of this?

Bass: I’m very much on the side of no delay at all. You’ve got to understand Megaman’s position. We’ve been making low energy lamps since we started 20 years back. We have no legacy in high energy lamps. We just have low energy. (Almost) all of our business is in LED. So to be fair my perspective is just go for the ban because obviously it suits my business. But taking that apart, if you just look a the bigger picture, the environmental picture and all athe rest of it, to me it makes no sense to delay when LED technology has moved at such a pace compared to all the market predictions. The price is half of what it was expected to be at this stage and it’s going to keep going at that pace. To consider pushing out the ban, it’s just nonsensical.

Right, but…

It would be less credible if they moved the dates. It was such a landmark decision. Then to sort of say ‘oh well the industry doesn’t really like it, we’re going to push the dates out,’ then I think the directives will lose their credibility.  So you have the credibility issue, the energy issue, and you have technology that is moving at a much faster pace than was ever predicted. And you have LightingEurope saying we don’t want it to change until 2020. It’s very very strange to me. The consumer is only going to gain by switching to the new technology.

Is there any argument at all for delaying?

If there is a need to change a date you shouldn’t make big changes like 4 years, you should make modest changes, 1 year perhaps. I’m not in favour of any movement at all. I can accept that in some parts of Eastern Europe maybe, the standard of living, market pricing may make the lamps less affordable. I also accept that some of the lamp technology hasn’t got a direct LED replacement, so maybe there could be a case to say that certain types of lamps can be delayed but the vast majority of the common GLS type, A-lamp type products are available, they’re at the right price and to a standard which is good enough for the domestic market. It may not be a 50,000-hour lamp, but 15,000 hours is already good enough for 10 years use or whatever. I can’t understand why you’d push it back.

But then, as you said, you don’t have the legacy business to worry about, the way many of LightingEurope’s members do.

They have a different perspective. They’re not like Megaman without the legacy in halogen. These are big companies with lots of production in these areas. And clearly there must be a conflict of interest when they offer a view on the situation. On the one hand they want to see progress and environmental improvement and on the other hand they’ve got a vested interest in these older technologies as well. It’s not easy for them to manage the situation. But I can’t agree with their position.

Yes, it’s almost bizarre. The industry has been telling the world to move to LEDs for several years, and now their message is that LEDs aren’t ready.

It doesn’t ring true. LightingEurope was taking a a leading role in establishing legislation with Brussels getting the directive in place. They had lots of input. And for them to turn around now and say ‘we want to push it out four years,’ even though we see all the market indications moving faster than we anticipated, I have a problem with that. I suppose in principle we can leave the ban in place for the vast majority of lamps, and maybe there’s some compromise on some smaller issues where the technology isn’t quite ready on certain types or whatever. But I don’t see any need to change it on the mass market.

Are they just holding on to the vestiges of the good old business model of selling replacement lamps, and trying to extend that for as long as possible until they figure out how to make money from long lasting LEDs?

There’s probably something in that. There’s a massive price range in the market. That means margins on LEDs are now very very slim. And there’s an awful lot of new players in the market in LED. It’s fragmenting. If you look at that dynamic for the big players, their predictions on profit on LED will be quite different from what they were a few years ago. So in as much as we see a huge drop in the price of LEDs, that will hit clearly hit the potential profits of big manufacturers clearly. And there’s a lot of new players on the market, so I think market share of the large companies is an issue. If a huge volume of LEDs is required in two years time, I think the market can supply it, but maybe it’s not them.

So there’s not really an overall manufacturing capacity issue that will lead to the bulb shortage that LightingEurope is warning about?

From a Megaman perspective it’s an opportunity. Why isn’t it an opportunity for them as well? It’s odd. There’s going to be a very different model going forward. Five years down the line, whatever state the ban’s in, everybody will be using the longer lasting LED technology and therefore there won’t be the same replacement market. The dynamics of the whole lighting industry are changing. Everybody accepts that and we’re planning for it. We all understand that the traditional incandescent retrofit business is finished. Whether it finishes in 2016 or finishes in 2020, it’s finished.

A lot of LightingEurope jobs are in Europe. Closing down halogen lines could mean costly and politically difficult layoffs.

True. And there again there’s another conflict of interest. From a European perspective one tends to be very mindful of any threat to the loss of European jobs. That will be another factor in their argument. I still don’t think it’s sufficient to delay.

Although your company doesn’t have the legacy burden, it’s a tough business for any company new or old. Nobody’s future is guaranteed.

No. There are lots of new players in the market. It’s a very volatile situation. I’ve been in the business a long time. It’s the most exciting time I’ve ever had in the industry. When I started in the industry, we were using technologies that were 100 years old. Now nothing’s for sure.

So where will the money come from in the future?

It will be a combination of things. The retrofits will be very strong for I guess the next five years. But there will be an increasing amount of integrated fixtures business. The estimates are that in new builds, in five years time, half of the fittings will be LED. So we have to be in integrated fixtures as well as retrofits. And we have to be in other areas like smart controls. We don’t know how big that will be but we think it’s a very significant development; it adds considerably to energy savings. The Megaman philosophy is not to get into complex building management system, but to find solutions that can be fitted almost like a retrofit. Wireless systems and so on mean we have a ready market without rewiring a building.

What about the problem that LightingEurope secretary general Diederik de Stoppelaar mentioned – that there are non-brand names selling substandard lights at very low prices, tarnishing the reputation of the LED industry?

That’s one area where actually I agree with him. There’s a lot of new players. Market surveillance in Europe is a key issue that we’ve been going on about for many years – LightingEurope and ourselves. So I would agree, but I don’t see that that has anything to do with the delay in the ban. There is an issue with keeping out the rubbish but that is not I my mind any excuse for a delay. It’s nonsensical: ‘We’ve got rubbish in the market, we must delay the ban.’ What’s that got to do with anything? It’s a separate issue.

I think you also might agree with LightingEurope’s point that the industry needs clear, consistent marketing and merchandising in which the consumer can understand and trust the information on packaging, signage and so forth.

(Yes). I walk into a retail shop and I’m totally confused by the whole display in the lighting area. I’m a lighting guy for 35 years and I’m totally confused by the way it’s presented, the way it’s sold to the public. There’s an environmental organisation in Brussels, ECOS (European Environmental Citizens’ Organisation for Standardisation) where one guy, Edouard Toulouse is really big on this.He wants to change the whole way this thing is sold to the public. And I’m totally with him. It’s so confusing. Waht does the normal guy do when he walks in the store? What does he buy? It’s impossible. Lamp packaging and display is a mess. The industry knows it. The authorities know it. But it has nothing to do with whether you should ban the product or not.

 Visit Novel Energy Lighting to get your LED retrofits for halogen lamps.

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STARQUALITY

LUX magazine reports. First impressions count at one of London’s top music venues. Robert Bain reports. The names of London’s major theatres and concert halls have become iconic, and few more so than the Hammersmith Apollo.

The Apollo first opened as the Gaumont Palace cinema in 1932, with a huge seating capacity of over 3,000, and lavish front-of-house facilities including a large first floor restaurant.
In the 1960s it was renamed the Hammersmith Odeon (a name by which many still know the venue), and became a concert hall. The list of musicians to have graced the stage reads like a who’s who of the past half century of popular music.

FADED LUSTRE

But like many such venues, the once opulent Apollo has not had the best of care over the years. As its use evolved from swish cinema to sweaty rock n’ roll venue, the Apollo’s lustre faded.

Now the Grade II listed building is in the midst of a rebirth.

When Kate Bush made her comeback this August after a 35-year hiatus, she did it at the Apollo, and the place looked better than ever.

Owners AEG Live and Eventim have embarked on a major refurbishment. The façade and front-of-house areas have already had their former glory restored, with the latest technology achieving effects not possible before, and bringing the best out of the building’s architecture. Next up will be the auditorium, which is set to be revamped next year.

THE NEW OLD FASHIONED WAY
The Apollo wanted to use fittings that matched the originals that were installed years ago – but not all of them could be saved or converted to use new light sources. Some were fitted with modern light sources, while others were recreated completely, based on photos.
The new lighting was designed by James Morse Lighting Design, with products supplied by Great British Lighting, Philips Color Kinetics, LightGraphix, Concord, Crescent, Radiant, Applelec and controls specialist Pharos

Visit novelenergylighting.com for products, services, and finances for retrofitting your buildings

Shuttla

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