The LED Lighting Revolution – What Next?

The LED revolution in lighting is here! The last 10 years has seen significant progress in all areas of lighting and this technology is now well established for many applications. Now is the time to ask how we can best apply this technology to different lighting scenarios.

The focus for installing effective lighting in industrial facilities is the need to provide a safe workplace with lighting that is adequate for the tasks to be undertaken. In order to do this, we must first understand how we see. Our eyes respond to both the quality and quantity of light provided for us. We see objects more clearly when there is a contrast between them and the surround, but if contrast is too severe, our eyes become fatigued and we may have difficulty adjusting to the task we are trying to accomplish. This talk will address the ways in which a suitable balance can be achieved.

LEDs provide an energy efficient way to fulfill all our lighting requirements. However, replacing existing legacy technologies (e.g. HID, fluorescent etc.) is not simply a matter of selecting LED lamps of equivalent lumen output. We need to understand the way light is distributed from different LED fixtures. IES files provide us with a method for modeling layouts that provide the required lighting, while mitigating unwelcome aspects such as glare. Model layouts need to consider the light produced by reflection from surrounding surfaces, such as ceilings, walls, machinery and floors, and this is not always readily available, so it is often useful to test sample fixtures in situ. It is also important to understand the temperature limitations of LED fixtures and to make choices appropriate to the thermal conditions expected in the facility.

LED provide an exciting path to solving all our future lighting needs. The challenge is to make choices to ensure that the lighting we select is appropriate to the tasks at hand.