Jun 18 2009
Visible Light Solar Technologies today launched the company and its inaugural Vector line of hybrid solar/LED (Light-emitting Diode) lighting solutions aimed at retrofitting or replacing the US's over 100 million outdated street light, parking lot, and exterior/interior commercial and industrial lighting fixtures. The industry's first intelligent solar/LED technology solution, Visible Light Solar delivers significant energy savings, reduced maintenance costs and programmable, true-color illumination. Experts estimate that municipalities, businesses and consumers could save up to 189 terawatt hours of energy by switching from conventional HID lights to solid-state LED fixtures, the equivalent of taking 16 million households off of the grid and $20 billion in electricity savings.
In addition to launching the company, Visible Light Solar announced it has installed or is installing Vector retrofit lighting applications at 12 sites, including the Bosque School, DKD Electric, and Osuna Business Park. Vector products let businesses significantly reduce their kilowatt consumption without having to replace their existing infrastructure of light poles, heads, casements and wiring. Visible Light Solar's Certified Installation Partner Program will provide nationwide installation and maintenance of the company's products. Outdated mercury containing HID bulbs and PCB-laden ballasts will be responsibly recycled by National Metals as part of Visible Light Solar's corporate commitment to environmental stewardship.
Breakthrough Commercial and Industrial Lighting
Visible Light Solar is the first commercial and industrial lighting company to integrate LED lighting devices with solar power technology in exterior and interior retrofit lighting fixtures. The company's solar/LED lighting applications operate up to 85% more efficiently than their HID counterparts because of the integration of energy efficient LED components with solar power technologies. Linking these two technologies is Visible Light Solar's Self Powered Device Interface (SPDI), a patent-pending intelligent power management infrastructure that combines custom hardware and software to control voltage fluctuations, seamlessly switch between solar battery and grid power, and provide the ability to customize each fixture's illumination levels. In addition to dramatically lowering energy consumption, Visible Light Solar's solutions reduce maintenance costs; LED's require far fewer changes than HID bulbs because they can last up to 100,000 hours and are resistant to thermal and vibrational shocks.
"We're going to make a difference in the way we light the world," says J. Dee Dennis Jr., CEO and President of Visible Light Solar Technologies. "For 150 years it was all about pushing as many lumens out onto the ground as possible without a thought to how much heat was generated or power was used. That's over. Now, our solar/LED solutions mean we can light right, not just light big." Dennis also asserts, "By reinventing lighting and replacing all the old HID fixtures in every commercial and industrial application in the US, we can reduce our customers' power consumption by billions of kilowatt hours, taking hundreds of coal powered plants off the drawing board."
"We have combined education, sustainability and new technologies so that Bosque School gets a little greener and our students become a little wiser about conservation," says Andrew Wooden, head of Bosque School, an independent college preparatory school in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Bosque is retrofitting 30 incandescent exterior lights - all of the main parking lot and driveway lights - on its campus with Visible Light Solar Technologies' solar/LED lights. Energy improvements are significant; Bosque School will reduce wattage from 25,000 kilowatts per year to 920 and projects annual savings of $11,000. "Our students will be studying Visible Light Solar's LED and photovoltaic solar lights to learn where electricity comes from, where it goes and how it is produced," says Wooden. "This is one experiential, integrated way our students can get a hands-on education; actually seeing how lighting works will make science relevant to their everyday lives."
First Product Line: Vector Lighting Retrofit
Visible Light Solar's inaugural product family, Vector Lighting, addresses the need by businesses to rapidly retrofit energy-inefficient, maintenance-intensive, metal halide and mercury vapor lighting fixtures while leveraging existing light poles, heads, casing and wiring. Customers can upgrade their existing lighting applications to hybrid solar/LED or LED-only retrofit solutions with no waste and minimal incremental cost while maintaining 100% reliability by backup grid connections. Businesses can choose from an extensive line of Vector retrofit applications, including
- Street Light Heads
- Parking Lot Heads
- High Bay & Low Bay Fixtures
- Wall Packs
- Parking Garage Fixtures
- Bollards
Self Power Device Interface (SPDI) - A Market First
Visible Light Solar's SPDI software and hardware infrastructure extends the light quality and reliability of LED lighting technology, provides voltage balancing, and allows for fixture-by-fixture programmability. SPDI gives facility managers the ability to program illumination levels for each fixture based on clock time, motion detection, ambient light levels, temperature and solar storage availability thereby increasing businesses' ability to provide enhanced security for their customers and raise and lower illumination levels as needed in order to reap energy savings. For Visible Light Solar's solar/LED applications, SPDI provides the intelligent interface between the solar battery, grid power and the lighting application, ensuring the fixture's optimal use of solar power while maintaining 100% reliability through its grid connection. If the solar gain on a particular day has not sufficiently charged the battery, or if the battery charge becomes low, then SPDI will automatically manage the switch from solar to grid power to ensure adequate lighting levels are maintained. Finally, SPDI carefully manages the voltage and current driving the LED devices, controlling power spikes and maintaining LED longevity.