Digital Lumens Unveils First Customer With Claim Of 87% Energy Savings

August 26, 2010

Digital Lumens notched its first publicly announced customer win this week with the claim of an 87 percent reduction in lighting energy consumption.

Maines Paper & Food Service, a New York supplier to the restaurant industry, says it installed a Digital Lumens lighting system at its Conklin headquarters in June. It anticipates saving 1.7 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year.

The public proof-point should be a boost for the Boston designer of LED fixtures that rely on wireless networking and management software to more efficiently use energy. Dozens of other customers are in commercial deployment, says CEO Tom Pincince, just not publicly announced.

Maines says it is using 484 Digital Lumens fixtures in a 460,000-square-foot warehouse. The company is taking advantage of New York State rebates and anticipates a payback on the investment of less than a year, said Patrick DeOrdio, vice president of operations.

Maines had been using 400 watt, high-pressure, high-intensity sodium fixtures. It says the energy reductions are coming from a reduced wattage draw per bulb and because fixtures can be automatically turned off when not needed.

Digital Lumens, which has raised more than $11 million of venture funding, is not the only company using networking and management technologies to reduce lighting energy consumption. Others include Redwood Systems and Adura Technologies.

According to some experts, the market has huge potential. Lighting presently accounts for about 17.5 percent of global electricity use and about 20 percent in the United States. Fixtures with LED bulbs should capture 46 percent of the $4.4 billion U.S. market for commercial, industrial and outdoor lighting by 2020, says Pike Research.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Bridgelux Redesigns The LED Light Bulb, Cuts Price

March 23, 2010

Bridgelux hopes to create what has so far eluded the LED lighting industry: an easily replaceable LED bulb.

Bridgelux's new Helieon Sustainable Light Module should make it easy to upgrade to new bulbs when they come out

The California start-up late Tuesday unveiled its Helieon Sustainable Light Module, a product it designed with Molex of Illinois. The package of LED chips and optical gear no longer needs to be screwed into a light fixture. This ease of installation should make it easy to change to new bulbs when brighter, more efficient LEDs come out, says CEO William Watkins.

The new product also cuts prices by 30 to 50 percent.

“I think it’s going to shock everybody,” Watkins said in an interview this week. “We’re really going to accelerate innovation.”

Bridgelux plans to deliver the new line of modules to the market in May and is presently working to have lighting designers incorporate the new socket into their products. Prices will range form $20 to $25 with a brightness of between 500 and 1,500 lumens. That is the equivalent of 75 to 100 watt incandescent bulbs. LED bulbs typically cut power use by 75 percent.

Watkins says the product’s novel approach is its ability to be easily switched. “People are going to want to replace them all the time,” he said. “It’s an easy way to stay on the technology roadmap.”

The challenge for Bridgelux, however, is to convince lighting manufacturers to work with the new socket. At this point, any fixture they create will only be able to use Bridgelux modules.

As competitors such as Digital Lumens and Redwood Systems promote their networked lighting strategy it will be fascinating to see how much Bridgelux is able to change the market.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Digital Lumens Unveils Lighting System With 90% Power Savings

March 16, 2010

Digital Lumens, the secretive Boston start-up, lifted the veil on its business strategy Tuesday, showing off its Intelligent Lighting System and its desire to network lighting to make it more efficient.

The company its LED based lighting system uses sensors and a wireless network

The company, like Bridgelux, which in January raised $80 million in venture funding and signed on former Seagate CEO Bill Watkins, makes low-power LED solid-state lighting chips. LED chips continue to increase in intensity and should reach price and performance parity with traditional lighting in a couple years.

Digital Lumens makes the thunderous claim its lighting systems will reduce power demands 90 percent. More typically, LED lighting draws about 25 percent of the power of an incandescent bulb, not 10 percent.

If true, the company’s products represent a significant step up over competitors.

Digital Lumens is not the first company to conceive of networked lights. Start-up Redwood Systems announced its sensor based networking technology earlier this month, and Adura Technologies, Juice Technology and Lumenergi also play in the space.

However, it hopes to differentiate itself with a mesh of wireless sensors that permit central control and management.

Commercial lighting alone is a $15 billion market, so the opportunity for the all the companies is huge. Experts expect the commercial market to be the first to adopt more expensive LED bulbs because of labor and energy savings. The bulbs last longer, so replacement is less frequentl. The larger residential market is more price-sensitive, and adoption will be delayed until bulb prices fall further.

Digital Lumens raised $11.3 million in 2009 from investors Flybridge Capital Partners, Stata Venture Partners and Black Coral Capital.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

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