LED lighting is the next frontier for IT user services. IT is uniquely suited to establish and support the tools necessary to support a rich set of dynamic user profiles and policies. LEDs make it possible for building users to set light level, color, and intensity and conservation policies based on their needs. Though most office space today has white light, colored LEDs make it possible to create pathways that guide visitors to their meetings and first responders to emergency event locations. Colored lights coupled to fast response controllers also make it possible to create an immersive light experience. Other light services include room “mood settings”. Imagine that the conference room reserved for your next meeting was set to your preferred light intensity, color and tone the moment you enter. Other services could include surround light—this application uses color and intensity to create an experience like surround sound but using light. Ambx.com has solutions like this today.
With the advent of new high power-low energy consuming LED light fixtures combined with PoE enhancements on Ethernet access switches, it’s now possible to build commercial lighting systems with an IP/Ethernet/PoE infrastructure. Though we’re starting to experiment in the lab, the technology is still young. But it’s obvious to us that it will be disruptive. Back of the envelope calculations suggest that PoE is a cost effective way to deploy LED lighting.
Regardless of the topology (PoE or Wireless+AC mains), user defined lighting applications built on an IP based LED lighting system, will transform building lighting practices. Whether lighting is installed or retrofitted to LED in a traditional manner, IT will be involved to configure and maintain light services—after all, as a building user, I expect to set my light preferences via my iPhone.
LEDs Save Energy
According to the US DOE and building industry experts, lighting is the single largest electricity consumer in commercial buildings (40%). Over the past several years, building equipment vendors have responded with an explosion in the number and type of LED lights manufactured and deployed. Not only do LEDs use less energy per volume of emitted light, but they are also ideally suited for active power management solutions that shape consumption to meet user’s dynamic requirements.
Customers Spend Billions of Dollars a Year on Upgrades
During a talk about lighting at a Dow Jones Alternative Energy Innovations Conference, Philips Lighting N.Am. Chairman, Kaj de Daas, stated that the overall size of the global lighting market is $75 billion year. The U.S. accounts for 20 percent of the total. http://seekingalpha.com/article/101408-the-global-lighting-market-by-the-numbers-courtesy-of-philips
Per a report by Pike Research, the lighting controls market will double in size to $2.6 Billion/year by 2016. http://www.pikeresearch.com/newsroom/intelligent-lighting-controls-market-will-double-in-size-to-2-6-billion-by-2016 and the US fixture market is $17.5B/year. http://www.freedoniagroup.com/Lighting-Fixtures.html
PoE LED fixtures in the Innervated Building Lab
Luis Suau, Don Schriner and I were in San Jose last week with Chris and Lisa Issacson of NuLEDs to install several LED fixtures in our EnergyWise office demonstration platform. Installation of the lights was the fastest integration ever performed in the lab. Luis spent 5 minutes positioning a 6” square template on the ceiling of the office, tracing the outline, and then cutting the sheet rock with a utility knife. Then he pressed in the self securing arms of the fixture and slid them into place. Standing on a ladder, he inserted a Cat5 cable. Within another minute he activated power on the switch port. And we had light—with 16 million colors!
Before closing, in addition to the people already mentioned, I need to give a shout out to a handful of folks who have been helping the innervated building team behind the scenes: Roger Karam, Bill McGowan, Ray Rapuano, John Parello and Peter Gits.
