The future looks bright

Imagine a world where energy crises would be a thing of the past. Where how much electricity you save doesn’t depend on how much you switch off, but what kind of light you switch on. Where lighting doesn’t just illuminate, but can also improve your mood, up your productivity, and enhance your feeling of well-being.

These aren’t just scenarios from a futuristic sci-fi movie, but very real technologies we can apply tomorrow, or a few years from now depending on how open we are to a complete paradigm shift.

Dutch company Royal Philips Electronics, or Philips, for short, gave us a glimpse into this brave new world at Lightfair International 2009, the world’s largest annual architectural and commercial lighting trade show and conference, which was recently held in New York City. At its biggest booth to date, Philips showcased over 30 brands and the lighting innovations that have the power to change the entire global landscape.

“We offer complete solutions,” says Rudy Provoost, executive vice president and CEO of Philips Lighting. “The three mega-trends we’re seeing in the industry now are 1) the shift from traditional to solid-state lighting; 2) the shift from incandescent to energy-efficient lighting; and 3) the shift from a components to a solutions approach.”

Indeed, the buzzwords at Lightfair were “solid-state lighting (SSL)” and “LEDs (light-emitting diodes),” two terms that are inextricably linked. Solid-state, which uses LEDs for illumination, is a new technology that is much more energy-efficient than our current incandescent and fluorescent lights. “Solid” refers to the fact that light is emitted from a solid semiconductor instead of the vacuum or gas tubes typical of traditional bulbs.

“Solid-state is arguably the most profound change the industry has witnessed since the invention of electric light itself,” says Provoost. “LEDs are transforming the nature of lighting.”

How? Philips execs explain that conventional lighting is either on, off, or dimmed. LEDs, on the other hand, provide a palette of millions of colors and dynamic effects that conventional lighting can’t match in terms of dynamic design, scene setting and ambience. They can be embedded almost anywhere — in furniture, walls, ceilings — and they’re digital and therefore programmable, with infinite possibilities for creative use and management — good news for all the architects, lighting designers and installers out there.

Kaj den Daas, chairman of Philips Lighting North America, adds, “The LED market is growing by 30 percent each year and could reach $30 billion within the next 15 years.”

People who spend a third of their lives at the office should know that up to 80 percent of offices are lit by outdated and inefficient incandescent and mercury vapor lamps systems. While lighting accounts for 19 percent of the world’s energy use, the United States alone consumes $15 billion in energy costs, with its 4.4 billion traditional light sockets.

“Adopting new lighting technologies in a country like the US would save the economy $18 billion every year and eliminate over 158 million tons of CO2,” Provoost continues. “A third of the total potential energy saving from lighting can be found in North America alone.”

Philips is collaborating with governments worldwide on new bills and legislation to phase out incandescent lighting within five years, and switch to high-efficiency ceramic metal halide or solid-state lighting solutions that could reduce energy consumption by 10 percent. “Add other system improvements like sensors and lighting controls and total savings could go up to 30 percent a year,” Provoost says.

Philips has come a long way from its beginnings as a light-bulb company that sold replacement bulbs and fixtures. Over 118 years, it has evolved into a solution company that earns around $12 billion a year as the world’s biggest supplier for healthcare and lighting. It has also extended its reach to other market segments by acquiring brands like Lumileds, Color Kinetics, Dynalite and Selecon, now providing total solutions for outdoor and industrial lighting, retail and entertainment.

“Philips now touches everything from Hollywood studios to world tours by the biggest rock groups on the planet,” notes Provoost.

And it rocked Lightfair 2009 with a range of exciting new products and trends:

• Traditional lighting is out; solid-state lighting is in. “Incandescents are the most expensive light source to own,” says Kevin Dowling, VP Innovation for Philips Color Kinetics, citing the case of Los Angeles airport (LAX), which cut energy consumption by 75 percent after it switched to Philips LEDs. “Their electric bill went down from $73,000 to $18,000!”

At Lightfair Philips introduced more LED alternatives and solutions, including a new A-shaped LED bulb, which at 600 lumens is more than five times as efficient as the 40-watt incandescent bulbs in general usage.

Two Philips products, in fact, won Lightfair Innovation awards: the Calculite LED downlight from Philips Lightolier (over 75 percent more energy-efficient, and lasts about 50,000 hours compared to the 1,000 hours of an incandescent bulb) got Most Innovative Product of the Year, while the Luxeon Rebel ES from Philips Lumileds (another high-light output, high-efficiency LED that emits 100 lumens per watt) bagged the Technical Innovation Award.

• Organic LEDs are the next frontier. In its seed phase right now are OLEDs, or organic LEDs made of sustainable, organic materials. At Euroluce in Milan Philips unveiled the first-ever OLED interactive lighting concepts for consumer and professional use, which combine interactivity and an ultra-flat profile with new and creative design potential.

• Lighting affects learning, mood and well-being. A Philips pilot study in Hamburg, Germany, found that Dynamic Lighting improved students’ reading speeds by 35 percent, their accuracy in tests by 45 percent, and reduced hyperactivity by 75 percent.

LED-based office luminaires that enable subtle changes in light intensity and temperature throughout the day have also been found to contribute positively to office workers’ feeling of well-being. “If you change the light subtly by regulating its color temperature, it’s like drinking an extra couple of espressos,” Dowling says.

• Lighting is going from functional to emotional. An appetite for scene setting in the hospitality and entertainment segments has resulted in LED solutions that turn hotel rooms into relaxing havens, while Vari-Lite, a leading innovator in the music industry, has issued the new VLX Wash luminaire, an easy-to-install solid-state system whose colors provide the concertgoer with a spectacular experience. “All the big theatrical productions like Cirque du Soleil, Shrek the Musical and Billy Elliott are lit by Philips fixtures and lamps,” says Den Daas.

• Lights are becoming no longer just lights. A brand-new innovation is Alter Odio, a fluorescent that integrates light and sound without the use of speakers, where the light itself is the sound-emitting device. “It can also act as a public address system or for background music,” says Bob Katz of Camlight Philips. “You can send a stream of information from a different continent into a hospital, or feed it through a computer for a boardroom presentation. It’s very cost-effective because there are no speakers, and will become a paradigm shift in the lighting industry or building substructure systems.”

Another smart system is Cosmopolis for urban beautification. Not only does its white-light aspect improve visibility and security, smart controls within the ballast itself dim lamp power during off-peak hours, saving energy and eliminating the need for an expensive control system.

• The addition of such controls and sensors will also transform energy use. Adding sensors like LEDs to, say, refrigerator cases in supermarkets that only light up when it senses a customer is near, saves 92 percent on energy costs.

• Soon, there may even be “Lighting Facts” labels on products. Like “Nutritional Facts,” you’ll see what quality you’re getting for what price. At $30 per light/lamp, cost is the primary issue when getting the new LEDs to market, but Provoost warns that you get what you pay for. “In Asia Chinese products are sold at very low prices but in terms of light output, performance, quality and longevity are problematic. There we will not compromise. We’ll stick to quality and performance and charge a premium for what we bring to market.”

• “Intelligent lighting” equals the “new architecture.” A current trend in architecture is the “function of ornamentation,” says Brad Koerner, a project designer at Lam Partners Architectural Lighting Design. There’s an organic influence on both form and function, for example, the Water Cube at the Beijing Olympics, where, thanks to hybrid material systems there are no more light fixtures, just integrated, glowing surfaces. “Though the bulk of the industry is focused on energy efficiency, new systems of control signal the advent of intelligent lighting for robotics, theatrical and digital lighting.” We may not be able to create Star Wars-type holograms yet, Koerner notes, but the lighting technologies in Blade Runner and Minority Report are already reality.

• Developing countries need innovative lighting solutions the most. In sub-Saharan countries like Ghana, 500 million people rely on sunlight as their only source of light. Philips partnered with NGO Kumazi Institute of Technology and Environment (KITE) to develop two pilot products: the solar-powered Uday lantern with LED technology, rechargeable battery and long life; and the similarly solar-charged My Reading Light, which can be held aloft or placed over a book page to enable study at night.

These are not given away but sold by Ghanaians themselves, so it’s also created a new business model, using micro-financing for credit to wholesaler s and retailers. Since these lights cost from $25 to $75 with import duties — the equivalent of a Ghanaian household’s monthly income — they’re viewed as investments and assets, but so far almost 500 units have been sold, which KITE deems a success.