October 2014

The Nuckolls Fund for Lighting Education presented a total of $30,000 for lighting education grants and awards in 2014. Founded in 1989 in honor of the late lighting designer and educator, James L. Nuckolls, The Nuckolls Fund has given a total of $875,000 for the advancement of lighting education in North America. Proposals are solicited [...]

The New York Festival of Light (NYFOL) announces New York City’s first annual New York Festival of Light, a three-night event – Thursday through Saturday, November 6 -8, 2014 – that celebrates light, in all of its extraordinary incarnations. New York now joins the ranks of major cities such as Berlin, London, Lyon, Montreal and [...]

Demand for lighting equipment, as measured by NEMA’s Lighting Systems Shipments Index, was essentially flat during the second quarter, increasing 0.1% over 2014Q1. In contrast, year-over-year performance for the topline index showed a decrease of 1.4%. Emergency lighting and fixtures were the only index components to show an improvement in sales with ballasts, large- and [...]

The next generation of light bulbs features embedded intelligence, with many new products becoming available, as the editor of LEDs Magazine recently pointed out. An interesting new product that’s been getting a ton of praise in the press is Alba by Stack, which features intelligence and onboard sensors to offer a load of features and [...]

Following preliminary analysis that ASHRAE/IES’s 2013 energy efficiency standard contains energy savings over the 2010 standard – 8.5% source energy savings and 7.6% energy savings – the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a ruling that establishes the 2013 standard as the commercial building reference standard for state building energy codes. In an announcement [...]

The Next Generation Luminaires (NGL) Design Competition recently recognized 57 commercial LED indoor lighting products as part of its sixth annual awards program. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Illuminating Engineering Society and the International Association of Lighting Designers, the NGL competition recognizes excellence in the design of energy-efficient commercial general lighting. In 2013, [...]

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2014 to Isamu Akasaki, Meijo University, Nagoya, Japan and Nagoya University, Japan; Hiroshi Amano, Nagoya University, Japan; and Shuji Nakamura, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA and one of the founders of Soraa, Inc. for “the invention of efficient [...]

When a fluorescent luminaire is upgraded to LED, what happens to its electrical safety certification? It depends on whether the new lighting is an LED luminaire, LED retrofit kit or LED replacement lamp. DOE has some guidance here. UL has some guidance here. Paraphrasing the documents, in a nutshell: All new components should carry proper [...]

The new M20 and M40 Optic from Lighting Services Inc is a proprietary design to control the field angle while maintaining centerbeam candlepower. The new optics are now standard on LumeLEX Series products with 20- and 40-degree beam spreads. Check out the LumeLEX Series here (type “lumelex” in the product name search box).