Welcome to the LEDs Magazine News & Insights newsletter for August 25, 2021. Day one of the virtual Strategies in Light yesterday was simply outstanding. There were a few technical glitches, but mostly the program content far outshone any issues. You can still register and catch part of Day two live. Moreover, all registered attendees will have access to the complete content set on demand for a couple of months.
We will provide some detailed coverage of the Strategies in Light program including in an issue feature. Meanwhile, I will share an interesting snippet here. I found the Lighting and Health Session moderated by Nancy Clanton incredibly interesting. View it and get the latest on metrics and more.
And Kevin Houser, professor of architectural engineering at Oregon State University, was one of the panelists. He spent a bit of time discussing descriptive terms used in the application. Human-centric lighting, he pointed out, is strangely indicative of a problem with many lighting installations intended to improve the human experience. But often the installations have a negative ecological or environmental impact.
Integrative lighting perhaps is a better term, and in fact acknowledges the full impact of such light. Kevin also questioned if the concept was really new, and suggested that metrics for integrative lighting are really a modern day refresh of light quality metrics that consider physiological impacts. He also said that for day workers, tunable lighting isn’t necessary in workspaces and speculated as to who should be responsible for getting a needed light for health dose. Perhaps the onus is ultimately to be placed on the individual.
We capped the Strategies in Light Day 1 with a virtual rendition of our Sapphire Awards Gala. This year the champagne toasts were necessarily virtual. Yet the winners were equally deserving and innovative. Dwight Stewart, founder and CTO of Igor, took Illumineer of the Year honors. Igor, working through the hardship of the pandemic, developed the Nexos Intelligent Disinfection system to help fight SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens both safely and efficiently. Congratulations from our team to Igor, to all of the Sapphire winners, and to the awardees in the first ever Design Excellence project awards presented in partnership with the Lighting Controls Association.
On to industry news and back to the lighting for health topic, our Mark Halper wrote about new US Department of Energy (DOE)-funded research being undertaken at Thomas Jefferson and Tulane Universities. Mark feigned tongue-in-cheek surprise that the DOE would fund research not directly tied to energy efficiency. But it is important that the tunable solid-state lighting (SSL) systems studied would enable health-centric tunable systems that do not waste energy. The research should soon yield substantive data on the impact of light on productivity and wellbeing.
Mark also wrote about the slow uptake of SSL in certain European regions and applications, and the continued impact that legacy lighting is having on the environment. I’ll leave it to you to read his cheeky headline, but the article was prompted by Signify’s CEO Eric Rondolat calling for faster action in retrofitting older commercial buildings. There is opportunity to eliminate over 50 million tons of CO2 emissions per year.
You will find many more stories of interest in the body of today’s newsletter. And always feel free to contact me to discuss content we post or to pitch a contributed article.
- Maury Wright, (858) 208-9442, [email protected]