I’m often asked by customers and lighting manufacturers how to add wireless capabilities to a light fixture (LED, fluorescent, or otherwise.) The answer, as with so many things in life, is “it depends” – but the good news is that we’re making it easy in a number of ways. We’re hard at work on a white paper that discusses these options in detail. Until that’s available, the options can be generalized into two categories:
Using a standard 3rd party adapter, such as Daintree’s WA-100.
Building a standard ZigBee radio directly into the fixture or power supply.
We’ve filmed a short video that shows the former option in action – how to add wireless control by installing our WA-100 inside a fixture. Although this isn’t the only way we can bring wireless into a facility, it’s one of the most effective and simplest. Check it out:
I’ve had several conversations with electric utilities lately, and an interesting trend has emerged – the desire to create incentives that take advantage of a networked approach to lighting. First, some background: Many of the utilities in the U.S. are very focused on designing and providing financial incentives to reduce energy use. The large investor-owned utilities in CA have been at the forefront of this activity, and over the last 20 years their actions (funded by the CPUC) have had a tremendous impact on the curbing of energy use in CA. This success has been watched closely, and over recent years, many utilities across the country have become just as engaged in promoting sustainability.
The common model of utility incentives, though, has become a mis-match for today’s technology. Most of the lighting incentive programs today are “deemed” – a customer will get a $$ rebate per efficient fixture or occupancy sensor they install, for example. This is a great first step, but it doesn’t account for the difference between a simple sensor in a room, and a networked sensor controllable (or adjustable) from anywhere. Studies (and real-world examples) have confirmed the ability of networked lighting to provide greater savings that extend longer over the life of a building. And most utilities would agree that actions providing greater energy savings should generate a greater financial incentive. The trick, though, is designing an incentive program that properly takes advantage of this greater savings. How do you accounts for a customer installing software or systems, as opposed to individual hardware products?
One way is to provide a custom rebate per kWh actually saved – and some utilities have had good success here. The California High Performance Lighting Program uses a set of calculations and assumptions to generate a custom incentive level. Another idea is to provide a higher level of deemed incentive for sensors (and other devices) when they are installed as part of a networked system. Regardless of how it’s done, it is becoming clear that the utilities will need to move further beyond today’s deemed incentives if they want to promote the more sophisticated and full-featured technology that their customers are looking for.
Ideas or thoughts on this important issue? Want to help us drive new incentive programs across the country?
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Our Light Learnings email and webinar topic this month is "Ensuring Your Lighting Controls Are Future-Proof". Our free webinar will be held at 10:00 a.m. Pacific, on Tuesday, January 24th, so register now, as space is limited.
If you don't receive our Light Learnings email, subscribe now. Here's a sample, from this month's email:
You may well be sold on the value of lighting controls--after all, they're a great way to monitor, control, and reduce your company's lighting energy usage. But what happens if you reconfigure your office space? Or if an innovative new type of energy-saving device becomes available. Are you stuck? Not if your lighting controls are future-proof.
Future-proofing is simply short-hand for investing in products that can change as your building changes, and remain just as viable (or more so). In lighting controls, the elements that can get you there are intelligence, wireless networking, and open standards. Let's take them one at a time:
Intelligent We covered this last month, but it's worth repeating. An intelligent lighting controls system has three basic attributes:
• Flexible configuration, allowing facilities managers and other users to more accurately adapt to conditions and occupant needs.
• Automated controls algorithms that make decisions based on multiple inputs.
• The ability to measure results, and the means to use that information to improve results.
All of this means that your controls system, properly used, can continue to adjust to a dynamic environment.
Wireless Since a wireless controls system uses software, rather than wires, to define zones, wireless systems are far more flexible, which makes it simple to reconfigure lighting when walls are moved. Wireless networks eliminate limitations in terms of which devices can be controlled, where they can be placed, and so on. This is especially critical in order to realize the most advanced control strategies, and those that extend beyond lighting. Most wired systems, for example, were not designed to connect to plug load controllers or environmental sensors, so there is physically no way to add that capability. Wireless systems can connect to such devices easily, as long as they speak the same language. Which brings us to...
Open Communications is a requirement of any controls system - the system must be able to receive data from devices and issue commands to fixtures. Most frequently the communications "language" is proprietary, created by the manufacturer of the controls system.
However, as other high tech industries have taught us, the path to progress is using "open standards" for communication. In an open system, a manufacturer chooses an existing communications language, and their products can communicate directly with other manufacturers' products. This way, each manufacturer can concentrate on the products in their area of expertise, rather than spending resources and effort creating and maintaining a proprietary "language" for their products to speak.
Controls systems that speak a common language with the components they control--regardless of manufacturer--are more likely to last the lifetime of your building, and continue to provide value far into the future.
Add these capabilities up, and you have a system that is poised to actually gain value over time rather than losing it.
If you'd like to learn more, we'd love to have you join us for our new webinar, "Ensuring Your Lighting Controls Are Future-Proof". Space is limited, so be sure to register now.
As is tradition this time of year, lots of folks out there are reflecting on the year gone by and making resolutions for the year they’re about to ring in. This will be the year that some quit smoking, that some lose that stubborn last 20 pounds, that we will exercise every day, or that we’ll make significant inroads in saving energy and being “greener”. At least, that’s what we tell ourselves. These are our New Year’s resolutions, and we tell ourselves that we WILL follow through this year…
But New Year’s resolutions are notorious for being broken before the last bit of confetti hits the floor. And if you think about it, that’s exactly what we set ourselves up for. For most of us, our New Year’s resolutions are nothing but a list of things we’d like to do differently in the new year. Lists are great for prioritizing daily tasks and making sure we pick up everything we need from the grocery store, but the humble list is not particularly conducive to accomplishing our New Year’s resolutions. You can’t just squeeze in losing 20 pounds between making a dentist appointment and picking up a birthday gift for Aunt Edna. What you really need is a New Year’s Plan.
Sure, it takes more effort than just crossing something off a list, but if you’re working toward something you really want, it’ll be well worth it.
Here’s to hoping you reach all your goals for 2012. And of course, if any of those goals involve reducing your corporate energy usage, we’d love to help. After all, ControlScope is the perfect platform for creating, and sticking to, a corporate energy reduction plan. And won’t that be something to celebrate as you ring in 2013?
Best wishes to all for a happy and healthy new year from all of us at Daintree Networks.
