Philips Lighting is carrying out a 3-stage lighting revolution: improved lighting system efficiency, the switch to solid-state illumination, and development of new applications. The firm is advancing research and development into every phase of lighting, from light sources to control systems and design.
"Over the last 50 or 60 years the energy efficiency of lighting has steadily improved, but we have to work harder to reduce energy consumption," warns Jan W Denneman, vice president, Sustainability Government and Industry Affairs in the Philips Lighting Group of Royal Philips NV of the Netherlands. It has become essential to reduce energy consumption to minimize global warming, and there is increasing pressure to slash power consumption in lighting applications, said to account for about 19% of global electricity consumption. The outstanding example is the ban on incandescent bulbs. Europe was the first to move in that direction, planning a phased elimination from Sept 2009 through 2012.
Based in proactive
Europe, giant illumination systems manufacturer Philips Lighting is
also taking steps to slash worldwide power consumption by lighting.
Royal Philips, the head organization of the group, began manufacturing
incandescent bulbs in 1891 (Fig 1), but is now abandoning its
traditional incandescents and carrying out a lighting revolution. The
first has steadily driven lighting innovation, from incandescent to
fluorescent, and then by developing high-efficiency fluorescent
lighting. The speed of progress is further accelerating now with the
appearance of light-emitting diode (LED) lighting, organic
light-emitting diode (OLED) lighting and more.
We interviewed Vice President Denneman, who is directing the effort to develop a program for worldwide reduction in energy consumption at Philips Lighting, and discovered that he is implementing a 3-stage plan (Fig 2).
The first stage is
to replace existing illumination with high-efficiency lighting and to
ensure effective, "green" usage.
The second is to promote the switch to solid-state lighting such as LEDs, and the third to develop new applications.
Eliminating all conventional incandescent lightbulbs and replacing them with bulb-type fluorescent lamps, then upgrading those to high-efficiency fluorescents, is the first step. Philips Lighting, along with other major lighting manufacturers and national governments, is currently engaged in this. According to a survey by the International Energy Agency (IEA), about 26% of total global energy consumption for lighting is from incandescent bulbs, making it clear just how significant it would be to replace them with fluorescent bulbs which have more than four times the light emission efficiency.
Another crucial point in the first stage is the use of lighting systems utilizing brightness sensors, human presence sensors, etc. If output brightness is adjusted depending on ambient light, whether or not people are present and other factors, power consumption can be reduced even further. This idea has led to the development of "intelligent" lighting, automatically adjusting the effect of emitting light on people via three time zones: morning, day and night. Philips Lighting believes that if the total potential for lighting power reduction is taken as an arbitrary 100, then about 25 can be achieved by light source improvements and the rest by system improvements, including control. By using an illumination system that dynamically adjusts light output, the company hopes to achieve both reduced energy consumption and value-added illumination.
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