Lightfair’s Annual Industry Update Draws Another Big Crowd

Mark Lien, industry relations manager for IESNA; Robert Cilic, head of customer and sales training for LEDVANCE; John Green, president, Lambda 530 Consulting; and Paula Ziegenbein, senior consultant,  Hartranft Lighting Design, offered their unique perspectives on the technological changes they have witnessed in the lighting arena over the past 12 months.

Each said they were impressed with the ever-increasing lumens per watt (lm/W) that the latest LED lamps offer, but said that although today’s LEDs can top 200 lm/W in some applications, lighting professionals still must do their homework when it comes to selecting LEDs for their lighting designs. Lien said current lighting research shows that 250 lm/W to 350 lm/W is possible.

The presenters noted that the annual Progress Report  by the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) is a good reflection of the pace of change in the industry. One of the biggest changes they saw in the most recent IES report is the increasing number of submissions from companies new to the lighting industry, and the decline in the number of entries by the largest lighting conglomerates. Twenty-six new companies submitted products to IES this year.

John Green of Lambda 530 Consulting said another lighting trend to watch is the increase in non-lighting sensors being manufactured into luminaires, including sensors for security, traffic, and environmental conditions. He gave an interesting example of how these non-lighting sensors could have provided important safety data to residents and community leaders in Hawaii during the recent volcanic eruptions. If streetlights there had been equipped with environmental sensors capable of detecting sulfur gases, they could have provided more advanced warning of the dangerous atmospheric conditions that occurred due to sulfur escaping from the volcanic vents.