May 2009

Interesting review of Nexxus’ SSL lamp here, written by one of Fast Company Magazine’s technology bloggers. The review contains some errors in its analysis, but it’s an interesting take and shows what non-lighting people are thinking about some of these advancements. In particular, LEDs still have a very high cool factor with consumers.

I recently wrote an article for the April issue of Electrical Contractor, about some aspects of integrating lighting control and energy management systems. This is a hot topic because codes now require automatic shutoff of lighting and demand response is going to grow in importance in the future, but EMS traditionally has not done a [...]

Prisma Architectural Lighting has announced that it has changed its name to Performance in Lighting USA, one of three brands under Performance in Lighting, or PiL, an Italian architectural lighting conglomerate.

NEMA’s Lighting Systems Index (LSI) dropped 12.8% during the first quarter of 2009 compared to the prior three-month period. Moreover, the index has registered new all-time low readings in each of the last two quarters. On a year-over-year basis, the LSI plunged nearly 22% and is down more than 26% from the cyclical peak level. [...]

Lighting designer Jim Benya of Benya Lighting Design has published a great presentation on his website talking about opportunities in the retrofit and relighting market, available free here as a PDF file.

Cooper Lighting, a division of Cooper Industries, Ltd., has announced a call for entries for its 33rd Annual SOURCE Awards national lighting design competition. The competition, which focuses on furthering the understanding, knowledge and function of lighting as a primary element in design, is open to all lighting designers, architects, engineers, professional designers and consultants [...]

Change the lighting; improve your health. It’s a strategy researchers from Case Western Reserve University’s Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing and the School of Medicine, the Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center (GRECC), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lighting Research Center and GE Consumer & Industrial have [...]

At Lightfair last week, Acuity Brands Lighting, Inc. (parent company of Lithonia, Peerless Lighting, Hydrel and other well known lighting brands) announced the introduction of a new architectural outdoor brand: TERSEN. The international launch of TERSEN is scheduled for June. TERSEN will provide the architectural outdoor lighting marketplace with a collection of artistic outdoor luminaires [...]

ASHRAE is taking another crack at producing BSR/ASHRAE/IESNA/USGBC Standard 189.1P, Standard for the Design of High-Performance Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings. This is the third public review draft. You may recall this standard had difficulties and the committee creating it was reconstituted last year. The public review period is 45 days, from May 1 [...]