Hybrid Solar Lighting Goes Into Beta Testing
by Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, St. Louis, MO on 08.10.06
It turns out that the Australians aren't the only ones experimenting with technologies that literally bring sunlight into a building. The folks at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a solar hybrid lighting system that they'll be beta testing over the next few months at twenty-five locations around the US, including the Sacramento Municipal Utility District customer service headquarters, San Diego State University, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a Wal-Mart in McKinney, Texas. Preliminary tests from five locations look promising, and demonstrate this technology holds great potential to save energy and money.
The hybrid solar lighting technology uses a rooftop-mounted 48-inch diameter collector and secondary mirror that track the sun throughout the day. The collector system focuses the sunlight into 127 optical fibers connected to hybrid light fixtures equipped with diffusion rods visually similar to fluorescent light bulbs. These rods spread light in all directions. One collector powers eight to 12 hybrid light fixtures, which can illuminate about 1,000 square feet. During times of little or no sunlight, a sensor controls the intensity of the artificial lamps to maintain a constant level of illumination. ...Though still in testing, Oak Ridge and Sunlight Direct have high hopes for hybrid solar lighting: their market projections show that, if the technology succeeds during the beta phase, 5,000 of these systems could be installed nationwide in five years. Costs are still an issue at this point, but the project participants believe that planned design changes will make this lighting option very attractive in parts of the country where solar potential is ample and current electric costs are high. ::Oak Ridge National Laboratory via TerraDaily and the What's Next Network (via Hugg)The system can save about 6,000 kilowatt hours per year in lighting and another 2,000 in reduced cooling needs for a total of 8,000 kilowatt hours annually, according to [technology licensee and Oak Ridge start-up] Sunlight Direct estimates. Over 10 years, for parts of the country where the utility rates are 10 cents per kilowatt hour, that can result in savings up to $8,000 per hybrid solar lighting unit. For large floor spaces - 100,000 to 200,000 square feet - this translates into energy cost savings of between $1 million and $2 million over 10 years, according to Sunlight Direct. Operation and maintenance savings could account for another $300,000 in savings over the same period.
There was a "Hug" article (with a link from here) to the Hug site about this.
It was stated in the article that this would be be implemented in Retail locations first and the article throught (primarly).
My question is, why not introduce more skylights into retail (Big Box) stores?
As cost is a concern for this new technology, why not go with Sky Lights?
Skylights are very low tech (execept for the light tunnel types) and appear low cost, but have some serious limitations: They take up a lot of interior/ceiling space and limit architectural options. They are a heating/cooling problem when outside temperatures are far from room temperature. Their benefit depends on the sun angle. They are maintenance problems and have a very high potential for leaking. To diffuse the beamed direct sunlight you need to use frosted glass or paint, which cuts efficiency. They cannot cover large areas when ceiling height is low. And, the killer for me: what do you do for the lower floors of a multistory building? On the other hand the Japanese tried a similar solar lighting concept years ago and it does not seem to have been accepted. Any ideas why?
This new lighting seems very good. When will there
be residential use of this great lighting, I think Big
Busness would enjoy it as well as home owners
who want better lighting in the home itself.
The older we get the better lighing we need to see
and read by. There are decent lighting on the market
today but none of those have the potential to return
real revenue back to your wallet quiet like this new
tect could.
Hoping to hear from you soon about this comment.
DR. Almander Slokum