Fern-Howard credits EdgeLED light guide technology success with pushing company toward 25% growth

March 10, 2015
Though bringing new products to market is never easy, help is available if those products show clear potential – as with Fern-Howard’s EdgeLED™ light guide based lighting technology.

The energy saving potential and green credentials of this innovative technology where recognised in 2014 with an Energy Entrepreneurs Fund award from The Department of Energy and Climate change. This assisted Fern-Howard in developing the EdgeLED™ luminaire range and bringing it to market where it has proved to be an exceptional success.

LED technology has long promised energy saving advantages, yet its wholesale adoption in commercial applications such as offices and shared areas like walkways has been held back by the visual discomfort such an intense light source creates.

Previous attempts to reduce this intensity had always involved diffusing or masking the light in some way – so compromising optical efficiency and negating the energy benefits LED brings.

Fern-Howard’s EdgeLED™ technology, however, places LEDs around an injection-moulded light guide that contains thousands of micro lenses. These distribute the light uniformly, reducing glare and allowing the full energy saving potential of LED lighting to be realised. Indeed, it is estimated that housing associations could reduce their CO2 emissions by 76% if they replaced their exterior lights with luminaires from the EdgeLED™ light guide based range.

Amber Rudd MP recently praised Fern-Howard’s work at Cleantech Innovate London, holding the company up as an example of how SMEs with vision and technical expertise need and deserve government support - and quoting Pete Scott, Fern-Howard’s CEO in full...

“Large, technical projects are traditionally hard for SMEs to undertake and impossible to fund, and the DECC process has been highly supportive, providing essential funding not available from any other sources. As a result of the grant we forecast that we will grow 25-35% for the next three years and expect employment to increase to around 90 jobs in 2016. In addition, we expect our exports to increase to account for 25% of our total sales.”

Contact:

Elke Hahmann, Marketing Manager - Fern-Howard Ltd.
+44-(0)-1420-470-400