Welcome to the LEDs Magazine News & Insights newsletter for Mar. 4, 2020. With all of the bad news of late in terms of the coronavirus and suffering economies around the globe, it’s been a bit difficult to forget about the real world and focus on something fun. I’d generally be immersed in what is happening in the San Diego Padres professional baseball spring training, but I’ve hardly kept up with the news out of camp.
Sports and entertainment, however, are important for us as distractions even in the worst of times. I was glad to see that our Mark Halper wrote a story about LED lighting being installed at a 110,000-seat cricket stadium in India by Signify. Now I really don’t fully understand the rules of cricket, although I have watched quite a lot of it during trips abroad. It’s great to see solid-state lighting (SSL) pervading all professional sports and also that HD television standards matter in every corner of the world when it comes to venue and playing-surface illumination.
I was also surprised to see a story pop up in our Company Newsfeed about a Zumtobel lighting project relative to cricket. Enthusiasts in the Gloucester, UK area can practice their cricket skills in an indoor netted facility that appears akin to what we might call batting cages in the US. When I next speak to my son, I’ll have to ask him if he would have gone pro had he been able to practice his hitting under such high-quality LED lighting.
We also had another Signify story that I found of interest. The company has a new load controller device for LED street lights that enables a luminaire to seamlessly swap between grid and solar power. Frankly, I’ve been surprised that we have not seen more solar street lights installed in the LED era. We had a Strategies in Light presentation back in 2014 that convincingly argued for more solar street lighting, although battery limitations would remain an issue.
The Signify product, however, is unique in being designed for street lights that have access to both grid and solar power. Such a deployment could mean smaller batteries and yet still deliver energy savings in the right geographies. We look forward to hearing about projects that use the load control device.
In our Horticultural Lighting Newsletter on Monday, I mentioned our Call for Papers for the HortiCann Light + Tech 2020 Conference. A portal for submissions is coming shortly, although you can also email abstracts to me directly. Just realize we are looking for presentations that dig into horticultural science and not company products and technology, and also for presentations that address other technology elements beyond lighting.
Also last week I had mentioned our new 40 under 40 program that will recognize young professionals in the LED and SSL sectors who are truly contributing to the advancement of the sectors. Again, watch for our submission portal in the next day or so.
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]