The Future of Energy-Efficient Lighting
Robin C Aldworth
President, Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage (CIE)
Thorn Lighting Limited, UK
Summary
The future of energy-efficient lighting, apart from overall economic and environmental pressures, rests in the hands of six main groups:
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Lighting industry research, development and marketing
- Local, national and pan-national government
- Standardisation and technical lighting organisations
- Lighting scientists, engineers and designers
- Sellers of lighting equipment and energy
- Specifiers and users
The paper discusses how the motivation and interests of these diverse groups vary in breadth and depth. Lack of co-ordination of their efforts can be counter productive and lack of understanding of the needs and problems of each group means that more time is spent fighting one another than working for the reduction of energy-use that each claims is their objective. Some of the current problems in lighting design are also discussed.
The conclusions are that until the various groups agree on a common strategy, the future is not particularly promising. The suggestion is made that what is needed is not a Right Light Conference but a Right Light Symposium of representative experts and policy decision makers from each group.
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