LED Lighting for a brighter future!

Megaman lamps have been chosen for the refurbishment of St Johns church in Meopham, Kent. The project involved a complete re-design of the lighting and the addition of bespoke fittings, in addition to the rewiring and installation of lighting controls throughout the ancient building. CES are experts in design and installation in listed buildings, particularly ecclesiastical and worked closely with Megaman to come up with a scheme that was sympathetic to the surroundings but that also provided the improved light levels whilst saving energy. St Johns is a large fourteenth-century church with a wooden pulpit, made for St Margaret's, Westminster, in 1682 and brought here in 1800. The former chantry chapel of Simon de Mepham (1272-1333), Archbishop of Canterbury, and a fourteenth-century political pawn, is linked to the chancel by an iron-grilled window. Like any historic building, providing good ambient light can be a problem but Megaman provided a solution with its dimmabl

Simply LED: M&S first trialled LED lighting in its store on Ecclesall Road in Sheffield. This week the retailer announced that it will roll out LED lighting to all its food halls Lux reports: Marks & Spencer is introducing LED lighting to all its food halls over the next two years, the retailer announced this week.100 M&S Simply Food stores will be lit by LED throughout, and a further 300 food halls and Simply Food stores will get LED lights in refrigerators. M&S announced its LED rollout in an update on its ‘Plan A’ environmental and CSR strategy. The report said:  'LED lighting is more energy efficient and longer lasting than more traditional forms of lighting. It is better for customers, directly focusing light on shelves and products to give a better visual experience.’ LED is described in the report as a key element of M&S’s strategy to meet its Plan A energy-efficiency commitments to reduce energy usage by 35 per cent by 2015 and 50 per cent

Sainsbury's has begun a massive nationwide rollout of LED lighting in hundreds of shops. The supermarket chain aims to eventually make all its stores 100% LED, reducing its energy bill for lighting by more than half. Lux reports exclusively on the project and meets the team behind it. Sainsbury’s was an early adopter of LED lighting. The supermarket giant has been looking into LED technology for about seven years, first for refrigerator lighting, and later feature lighting and car parks. Over time, as the technology got more powerful, it spread to more applications. Last year marked a milestone. Sainsbury’s opened the doors of its first all-LED store – a brand new hypermarket in Leek, Staffordshire, which consumes about 60 per cent less energy for lighting than comparable stores (with the same nice even illumination) thanks the GE ‘Blade’ fitting. But that was just one shop. Now, the use of high-tech low-energy lighting at Sainsbury’s is no longer the exception, it i

Fit for an acquisition:  Sweden's ITAB, which sells retail shop fittings and lighting such as above, has acquired the UK's Profile Lighting. If takeovers by larger foreign companies are a sign of a country's buoyant lighting market, then things are well afloat in the UK, where overseas groups this month alone have acquired two lighting firms. First, Japan's Endo Lighting picked up Warrington-based family run Ansell, followed quickly by Sweden's ITAB acquisition of Hertfordshire-based Profile Lighting. Osaka-based Endo, a ¥38.8 billion (£209 million) 47-year-old company known for its LEDZ brand of LED lighting products, acquired Ansell for ¥6.5 billion, or  roughly £35 million . 'We are pleased to announce that Ansell Electrical Products Limited and Ansell (Sales & Distribution) Limited have been acquired by Endo Lighting Corporation of Japan,'  Ansell announced  in a short press release. 'Ansell will now operate as a wholly owned subs

Marathon Man:  Gregor Paterson-Jones and the Green Investment Bank are in the street lighting business for the long run. Their municipal loans for LED luminaires and poles can last for as long as 30 years, allowing cities to repay through energy savings. Lux LONDON - The bank that the UK government established to back energy efficiency and renewable power projects is pushing hard into LED streetlighting with a financial product that lets municipalities repay a loan over decades, by using money saved from energy savings. The Green Investment Bank will offer loans of as long as 30 years - a length that's hard to find in the commercial banking world - Gregor Paterson-Jones, co-director of energy efficiency, told an audience at LuxLive. The GIB recently completed a loan agreement with Glasgow City Council to fund 10,000 new LED streetlight luminaires. With that as a model, it is now reaching out to other localities. Paterson-Jones encouraged municipalities to use LED

Lux LONDON-- ‘There’s no doubt about it.’ This was the emphatic answer of Hoare Lee’s Dominic Meyrick a tLuxLive on Wednesday, on a discussion panel tackling the question of whether the light switch is dead. You have to award him full marks for passion – and for consistency, Meyrick made the same case at the International Lighting Fixture Design conference last July. Don’t call the priest just yet. Once again his view faced opposition, this time no more vocally than from GOOEE’s Simon Coombes. ‘Definitely not,’ was his assessment, ‘there’ll always be a need for a fallback, a tactile device on the wall.’ ‘Because you grew up with one,’ Meyrick chimed in. ‘It’s nurture not nature.’ On that point they could not agree, but it highlights the underlying question: to what extent do users want or expect automation? Here the panel were quick to draw analogies, from gas heating to automobiles, and, inevitably, smart devices. ‘Mobile phone interfaces come and go, but we expect l

Professor Herbert Plischke wants lighting companies to take more responsibility for how their products affect the human body Lux LONDON-- From manufacturers to wholesalers, the lighting supply chain needs to start measuring and explaining the non-visual impact of its products on end users. That’s the view of Professor Herbert Plischke, of Munich University of Applied Sciences, who told delegates in a packed session at LuxLive of the growing body of evidence to suggest that the right light – at the right time – can stabilise hormonal rhythms, enhance night-time melatonin secretion, improve sleep quality, increase day-time vigilance and raise our resilience to stress. For shift workers and others who are active at night, appropriate lighting could reduce ‘chronodisruption’ – the effects of the body being active when it is not prepared to be. Lending his voice to the ‘human-centric lighting’ movement, Plischke said that the radiance, spectrum and solid angle of artificia

Facing £157m budget cuts over the next few years, Derbyshire County Council decided that some lateral thinking was needed. The result is the plan to replace its over 68,000 existing streetlights with low energy LED lighting to help balance the books. By James Hunt: The LED lights are expected to last for 25 years, which will lead to lower maintenance costs, and they use less electricity. Derby Telegraph Derbyshire County Council is to replace over 68,000 streetlights, with lamps and luminaires replaced with new LED light fittings. At the same time, over 22,000 older lampposts will be replaced. The reason for this £23 million investment is the very significant budget restrictions imposed upon the Council. The amount of money that the Labour-led Council has paid in electricity for streetlights has risen in recent years because of the increase in fuel prices. Since LED lighting uses less electricity and prices keep going up, it is envisaged that the £23m investment could be

It looks like the sun... but it isn't. It's a brand new type of artificial skylight called CoeLux which, for the first time, recreates the scientific process that makes the sky appear blue. It also creates an illusion of depth to make the 'sun' appear to be far above. Lux takes an exclusive look. Featured in this video: Professor Paolo Di Trapani, CoeLux Kevin Andrews, Ideaworks Christopher Musangi, Mlinaric, Henry and Zervudachi Etienne Pradier, Butterfly Trix Gary Hubbard, ISG Robert Kiely, Lightadvice Shuttla www.novelenergylighting.com

Battle of the efficiency bands:  With a 50 per cent improvement, LEDs have now pulled ahead of CFLs. Lux reports: The lighting industry can sometimes sound downright fickle when boasting about energy savings for LED lamps compared to incandescent models. One moment, it's 70 per cent. Another it's 80. Then it's 90, after which it might revert to 80, or 75. Who could blame the consumer for getting jaded? But it's not always the whim of the vendor that keeps these numbers going round and round. Several factors justify the vicissitudes. The US Department of Energy has just reminded us of one of them: Lab developments keep making LED bulbs better. Thus, figures from two years ago could well have given way to improved performance. According to the DOE's Energy Information Administration, new LED lamps ('bulbs' to some readers, including those in America) are generally 50 per cent more efficient today than they were in 2012. The chart above shows th

But can it also do the dishes? : BMW's combo LED streetlight and car charger thickens the plot of the convergence game, in which internet companies are already intruding on traditional lighting industry turf. Lux Reports: German auto giant BMW has thrown down a gauntlet to the lighting industry, unveiling a new streetlight that doubles as an electric vehicle charger. No, there are no typos in the opening sentence. BMW – you know them for cars with names like BMW i, BMW M, MINI and Rolls-Royce – is getting into the LED street lighting business with a product called Light and Charge - a Swiss army knife for today's age of all things digitally converging. 'Light and Charge is a simple and innovative solution which aims to seamlessly integrate a smoothly functioning charging station network into the urban landscape,' said  Peter Schwarzenbauer, a BMW board member . Schwarzenbauer introduced the 'combined state-of-the-art LED street light and charging s

You be the judge:  The last time you were at the Sistine Chapel, it probably didn't look like this. Lux Reports: ROME - If you've been to the Sistine Chapel, you probably recall the crick in your neck and the strain on your eyes as you gazed upwards to spot Michelangelo's ceiling. Strain no more. The Vatican will today officially switch on 50 new luminaires containing 7,000 LEDs that illuminate masterpieces such as The Creation of Adam and The Last Judgement in a way that brings the paintings and frescoes into full, clear and colourful view, as was evident at a press preview last night.  'We want to honour the 450th anniversary of Michelangelo's death by providing new lighting for his work,' said Prof Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museums. The great artist would probably be proud of the project, led by Germany's Osram, which said the new LEDs provide ten times the brightness of previous lighting, while slashing energy consum

Optics in the new OSRAM classic bulb-shaped LED lamps ensure uniform light with beam angles of up to 300° The unique optic by OSRAM Whether the light of a lamp is perceived as being pleasant by customers depends on many different factors, for example color temperature and luminous intensity. The distribution of luminous intensity in the so-called far field is also important, meaning where light hits walls, floors or table surfaces, and of special importance in this respect is that light is distributed homogeneously and that no shadowing or linear structures are seen. These tasks are achieved by optics assembled within the LED lamps with classic forms, i.e. pear, candle or drop shapes.  In the past this often presented a problem particularly with clear lamps, because with these lamps such optics can be seen from the outside, meaning that these are not only a functional element but must also be visually attractive. In this respect the optic also ensures that the "technolo

Lux Magazine reports:  Chelsea and Westminster Hospital has upgraded its lighting to LED in an effort to cut energy bills and improve patient and staff wellbeing. The hospital, in Fulham Road, London, provides a range of specialist services for patients as well as general local services. The hospital, built in May 1993, is currently expanding and upgrading its facilities. The trust secured funding from the Department of Health for the upgrade to LED lighting, based on predicted energy savings and CO2 reductions. Thorn was selected to provide a mix of standard, modified and bespoke fixtures. Thorn’s Chalice LED downlights were installed for circulation areas, College LED luminaires in the corridors and Omega LED luminaires in the wards. Bespoke fittings were provided for the atria and staircases at the trust’s request to fit in with the original architecture. To minimise the electrical works and avoid disruption to patient care, existing fixtures were replaced point for poin

Philips MASTER LEDbulb 40W Clear - Clear classic goes LED The incandescent bulb may be a thing of the past, but its sparkling warmth and beautiful shape has never gone out of style. Now you can recreate that look and feel with Philips MASTER LEDbulb Clear 6-40W, the first LED bulb to recreate the look and feel of incandescent. Modern classic design MASTER LEDbulb Clear 6-40W has been designed to mimic the classic shape of the incandescent bulb. A stylish and decorative lamp that looks too good to hide. But the real beauty is in the magical, nostalgic ambience that it creates. Clear, sparkling light The unique lens design produces a clear, sparkling light that evokes the shimmering  effect of filament bulbs. Warm white tones of 2700K enhance the lighting experience even further, producing a cosy atmosphere that is both intimate and elegant. What’s more, with smooth dimming you can dial the light levels up or down to perfect the ambience for incredible scene setting. The Philips