SmartLight

[amor de cosmos]

UC's SmartLight More Than a Bright Idea, It's a Revolution in Interior Lighting Ready to Shine
The innovative solar technology "would change the equation for energy," according to UC researchers.
Date: 11/6/2013 2:07:00 PM

A pair of University of Cincinnati researchers has seen the light – a bright, powerful light – and it just might change the future of how building interiors are brightened.

In fact, that light comes directly from the sun. And with the help of tiny, electrofluidic cells and a series of open-air "ducts," sunlight can naturally illuminate windowless work spaces deep inside office buildings and excess energy can be harnessed, stored and directed to other applications.

This new technology is called SmartLight, and it's the result of an interdisciplinary research collaboration between UC's Anton Harfmann and Jason Heikenfeld. Their research paper "Smart Light – Enhancing Fenestration to Improve Solar Distribution in Buildings" was recently presented at Italy's CasaClima international energy forum.

"The SmartLight technology would be groundbreaking. It would be game changing," says Harfmann, an associate professor in UC's School of Architecture and Interior Design. "This would change the equation for energy. It would change the way buildings are designed and renovated. It would change the way we would use energy and deal with the reality of the sun. It has all sorts of benefits and implications that I don't think we've even begun to touch."

MAJOR IMPROVEMENT THROUGH MINIMAL ADJUSTMENTS

There's a simple question SmartLight addresses: Is there a smarter way to use sunlight? Every day the sun's rays hit Earth with more than enough energy to meet many of society's energy demands, but existing technologies designed to harness that energy, such as photovoltaic cells, aren't very efficient. A typical photovoltaic array loses most of the sun's energy when it gets converted into electricity. But with SmartLight, Harfmann says the sunlight channeled through the system stays, and is used, in its original form. This method is far more efficient than converting light into electricity then back into light and would be far more sustainable than generating electric light by burning fossil fuels or releasing nuclear energy.

The technology could be applied to any building – big or small, old or new, residential or commercial. But Harfmann and Heikenfeld believe it will have the greatest impact on large commercial buildings. The U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration shows that 21 percent of commercial sector electricity consumption went toward lighting in 2011. Harfmann calls the energy demand for lighting in big, commercial buildings "the major energy hog," and he says energy needed to occupy buildings accounts for close to 50 percent of the total energy consumed by humans.

SmartLight could help shift that energy imbalance. It works like this: A narrow grid of electrofluidic cells which is self-powered by embedded photovoltaics is applied near the top of a window. Each tiny cell ¬– only a few millimeters wide – contains fluid with optical properties as good or better than glass. The surface tension of the fluid can be rapidly manipulated into shapes such as lenses or prisms through minimal electrical stimulation – about 10,000 to 100,000 times less power than what's needed to light a traditional incandescent bulb. In this way, sunlight passing through the cell can be controlled.



SMART APPROACH ALLOWS DYNAMIC RESPONSE

As for switching, Harfmann envisions a workplace where physical light switches join other anachronistic office equipment like mouse pads or bulky CRT monitors. Plans call for SmartLight to be controlled wirelessly via a mobile software application. So instead of manually flipping a switch on a wall, a user would indicate their lighting preferences through an app on their mobile device, and SmartLight would regulate the room's brightness accordingly. SmartLight could even use geolocation data from the app to respond when a user enters or leaves a room or when they change seats within the room by manipulating Wi-Fi-enabled light fixtures.

http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.aspx?id=18752

[middeljohn]

Thanks for posting this. Very interesting concept. I consult businesses on reducing their lighting consumption, so this is something I'm going to have to pay attention to as it develops.