IES Progress Report Committee

I have been fortunate enough to serve as a member on the IES Progress Report Committee for the past eight years. Our mission is to, “keep in touch with developments in the art and science of lighting throughout the world, and prepare a yearly review of achievements for the Illuminating Engineering Society”.  

It’s an extremely talented group of about 30 dedicated individuals from across the lighting industry. Our members are Manufacturers (lamps, lighting controls, luminaires), Educators, Utility Folks, and Lighting Designers.  I feel privileged to be part of the committee with such an extensive knowledge base, we have members who have served on this sole committee for over 30 years.  It is our responsibility each year, to review submitted lighting products, lighting publications and research and then determine what is considered progress in the industry that is noteworthy and should be presented to the Society at the national conference and then published in our monthly trade journal.

Last year we received 261 submissions, 156 were accepted.  Our review period for submissions is an intense 2-1/2 days.  It seems like a short time for a review of so many items, but it certainly feels like a really long day when you have been trapped in a room for 10 hours straight looking at lights. But my colleagues make it all worthwhile. To hear fair and direct commentary on a products merits (or failings) from such a group of experts in invaluable. 

Along with their wisdom comes a very dry sense of humor that helps make the day move forward.  And I confess, I have been known to slip in “made-up and fake products”.  In 2009, my “fake” product was accepted into the report and read aloud at the conference.  It was for the application of a new NET ZERO lighting control system.  All power in the building was organic and generated by the “gregarious activity of Sea Monkeys”.

It was claimed, they could generate up to 1.21 gigawatts of electricity daily.  The only other known organic source of that magnitude is a bolt of lightning.  The control system transferred the power through-out the building thru the use of a Flux Capacitor.

The fake submission was accepted by 100% of the members and kept us all in good spirits. And since submissions are currently open, I guess I need to start thinking of a small distraction that can help us through the next arduous review session…

We are currently accepting submissions for the 2012 report.  You can check out the 2011 report on the IES website   http://www.ies.org/progress/     Submissions close on August 17^th.  

LED's and the upcoming GovEnergy conference

I've spent the last few days putting together the finishing touches on a LED presentation for the GovEnergy conference August8-10th. www.govenergy.com I am happy to be re-teaming with Jimalee Dakin, Visa Lighting to represent a version of our LED presentation from Lightfair 2 years ago. But with LED technology moving at such an incredible pace, there are always new things to add.
 

Some recent additions have included:
On Feb 15, 2011 The Energy Star program announced the first LED retrofit lamp (designed to replace the 60w A19) had achieved full "Energy Star Qualified" listing.

On February 16, 2011, the EPA announced the Energy Star Luminaire Specification V.1.0 to assist in indentifying product that meets a specific set of criteria determined to be acceptable by Energy Star. You can visit the site at www.energystar.gov/luminaires.

February was apparently a very busy month as the ZHAGA Consortium (an industry organization for the standarization of LED light engines) released their first set of standardized specifications for a "Scocketable LED light engine with integrated control gear" on February 11, 2011.

This particular specification describes the interfaces of a downlight engine standard. The specifications are only available to ZHAGA members at this time, but will be available for download by the public at a later date. But the idea of standardization in the LED industry certainly has tremondous appeal and its exciting to hear progress on that front as well. You can check it out at www.zhagastandard.org.

And yet another update references the DOE's 12th round of CALiPER testing. CALiPER stands for Commercially Available LED Product Evaluation and Reporting. Visit www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/ssl/about_caliper.html to view the document with the most recent independent tests run on a varied selection of currently available LED product.  I am sure there are more, but these are a few we recently noted and thought were definately worth sharing at the upcoming conference.

Streetlight Study

The Lighting Research Center’s National Lighting Product Information Program has just published a Specifier Report on commercially available Steetlights used for collector roads. The results are pretty interesting considering all the LED hoopla we all have been subjected to in the industry over the past few years. Below is a take-off on the Abstract . . .
The organization purchased 14 streetlights (identified by a survey of Specifiers during 2009). Four of the streetlights were high pressure sodium (HPS), one was induction, one was pulse start metal halide (PSMH) and eight were LED. Using IES Recommended Practice guidelines in RP-8-00, the poles were laid out to meet required footcandle and contrast levels.

On average, the LED streetlights and the Induction streetlight could be spaced only about half the distance of the HPS and PSMH streetlights and still meet the IES RP-8-00 criteria. Meaning, a one to one replacement (as often suggested by manufacturers) may end up below acceptable light levels.

The Life Cycle cost is dominated by the initial product cost rather than the potential energy savings or maintenance cost and the other “more efficient” sources only offered 1% to 10% less power consumption per mile illuminated.

For further info, please check out the link below to the published document

http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/NLPIP/PDF/VIEW/SRStreetlights.pdf

The New Obsolete

Technology is evolving so quickly these days and it seems what was “new” yesterday is old news today. We recently had a situation where a product specified less than 10 years ago became obsolete. A lamp used in a Fiberstars fiber optic illuminator was no longer available or supported by the manufacturer. The First Convenent Church of Willoughby Hills was desperate to come up with an affordable solution to keep the cross illuminated at night with the loss of the original lighting system.

 

Tec would like to thank Gene Scheilcher of Fiberstars for stepping up and finding a solution. While the lamp was no longer available, Gene had urged us to consider an LED option. Based on the cut sheets submitted, we were concerned with lumen output matching the previous system and asked for support on a mock-up. Following the mock-up, Gene went step further and provided the church with the replacement illuminator from Fiberstars.

Gene, thank you for your generous donation.

Photo Shoot at Miami University Farmer School of Business

I recently headed to Oxford, Ohio (near Dayton) for a photo shoot of a lighting design project at Miami University. An architectural lighting shoot is always a challenge. To those who haven’t had the opportunity to participate, it typically happens after hours (so we don’t end up with a lot of daylight filling the space). This means, the Owner is gracious enough to hand us the keys to the building and allow us to poke around in there after normal hours (just us and the cleaning crew).  We met  the day prior to the shoot to walk the space and come up with a gameplan. We also had to override the astronomical time clock on the lighting control system.

Checking the specific time of day for sunset, next we coordinated the “magic hour”.  It  happens for only about 45 minutes right before and during sunset. We get a great navy blue sky with no fill light coming in the windows striking a perfect balance with the indoor and outdoor environment. This project just so happened to be full of windows where we could take advantage of the daylight harvesting. It meant we had to pick the most significant spaces to catch that perfect light.

The photographer showed up with two sets of cameras to set up and allow us to move quickly between the two rooms with the most windows.  We shot eight different spaces in total and the shoot lasted almost 5 hours. We left the building around midnight.  You’d think that was a pretty long time for 8 photographs, but our photographer, Scott Pease (www.peasephotography.com) was very detailed and intent in getting us the best shots possible. As the human eye is so much more sophisticated than a camera lens, we are able to easily discern details on lighting fixtures, whereas the camera often turns them into blobs of light. Scott brought his laptop and checked every exposure before the final bracketing shots to make sure we would get the details and contrast we needed.

Along with getting sneak peeks of the final images, I spent the rest of the evening with Scott’s assistant straightening tables, and lampshades, pushing chairs in, and moving trash cans out of the shot. After all pictures are taken, we restore the space and then the same scenario happens in the next space. It’s a lot of “hurry up and wait”, but the final images look fantastic.

Thanks again Scott!