Welcome to the LEDs Magazine News & Insights newsletter for Feb. 28, 2020. Wow, it’s hard to believe we’ve reached the end of February. It has not been the year I expected, from almost any perspective. But let’s start Friday off on a positive note.
I want to introduce you to a new program we will be launching called 40 under 40. We should have a submission portal open on our website next week. We want to recognize and celebrate the under-40 rock stars of the LED and solid-state lighting (SSL) sectors, those up-and-coming industry participants that shine within their own organizations and that are also spending time and effort making our industries better by working in standards organizations, on volunteer projects, and helping others selflessly. Our Carrie Meadows has posted a blog with more details on the program. Start thinking about who you will nominate — and note there is no fee to nominate.
We have dueling stories for you today in terms of how you might see the Trump administration’s US Department of Energy (DOE) relative to SSL. The agency has announced a major research funding program under the BENEFIT (Building Energy Efficiency Frontiers & Innovation Technologies) program totaling $74M (million) with $12.5M of that total going to five LED and SSL projects. For one moment, you can close your eyes and remember when the DOE was pushing SSL adoption forward in the US and impacting almost every country around the globe.
Then go on to another story that we posted, and read about how the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), along with other environmental organizations and US states and cities, are suing the DOE to try and make the agency enforce energy-efficiency policy that’s present in legislation already approved by the US Congress. The moves of the agency are tough to reconcile.
We get to the close of this week with one story that reminds us of how Monday dawned. The organizers of Light + Building (L+B) have announced that they will hold the postponed event Sept. 27–Oct. 2. In the process of rescheduling, L+B essentially wiped out the LED professional Symposium slated for the prior week in Bregenz, Austria. Our article also looks at the prospects for other upcoming industry events in the face of the growing coronavirus issue that global society faces.
We do have our March issue content available for you now in HTML format. There are a number of good articles. We have a column by Robert Lee of Signify that looks at the future of LED-based systems and the potential for ubiquitous networks and control.
And I’d again make one last request for your help — I really promise it’s the last for this project. We are about to close our State of the Industry survey. If you haven’t taken this survey, please follow this link. Help us get the best possible view into how our LED and SSL sectors are progressing and changing based on your own work and organization.
You will find many more stories of interest in the body of today’s newsletter. Please note my relatively new email address below. And always feel free to contact me to discuss content we post or to pitch a contributed article.
- Maury Wright, (858) 748-6785, [email protected]