Electrical Industry Articles and Stories

Energy efficiency isn’t just a buzzword. It's a necessity for businesses looking to reduce costs, enhance operational efficiency, and contribute to environmental sustainability.

Lighting the great outdoors requires a bit more thought now than it did a couple decades ago. The goal used to be simply packing as many lumens as possible into a landscape fixture. That was the entire point. Photocell sensors might have been used to ensure lights didn’t stay on during daylight hours, but keeping outdoor space fully illuminated – even when no humans were around – was seen as a key safety measure.

Occupancy sensors are quickly becoming a regulatory requirement in many commercial spaces, thanks to evolving energy codes seeking to wring out kilowatt-hours of energy savings anywhere it’s possible.

In just a little more than a decade, LED lighting systems have moved from a not-quite-yet-there technology to one that essentially owns the market, especially in commercial applications. With efficacy ratings that now surpass those of once-dominant fluorescent fixtures, LEDs also can operate for years before needing replacement, versus months for fluorescent tubes.

Earlier this year at the Light + Building 2018 trade show in Frankfurt, Germany, Philips Lighting announced a string of new initiatives aimed at the transition to more LED lamps as well as the inclusion of LEDs into the “Internet of Things” (IoT) in homes and buildings worldwide.

First the company announced IoT platform called Interact, designed to handle data collected from connected light points, sensors, devices and systems.