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The Department of Energy wants to significantly stimulate the efficiency of commercial lighting products. A decade ago, their original Lighting Prize revolutionized screw-in bulbs. Now the current competition is even more ambitious: a multi-year project with serious money, hoping “to unlock the … future of illumination in commercial and institutional buildings.” It’s come along since [ …
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We wanted to let you all know that we have a new mailing address. It’s just our mailing address that has changed. All of our email addresses and phone numbers will remain the same. Kindly update your records to our new mailing address of: Fred Davis Corporation PO Box # 674 Medfield, MA 02052 We […] …
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The U.S. Department of Energy recently announced a second “Lighting Prize” (L-Prize) competition. It was ten years ago that the winner of the first and only previous L-Prize was announced. With the new news, we thought it would be enlightening to compare the L-Prize now and then. We covered the first L-Prize in e-newsletters back […] …
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We are introducing a new series: WHAT ABOUT LIGHTING?! We intend to poke and prod energy-professionals (meaning our clients, friends, and colleagues) toward awareness that their energy-efficient lighting work will benefit from some attention. Big smile emoji. Let’s be clear that we are beyond excited to see monumental progress being made in energy and climate […] …
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While working from home, we realized the value of online presentations in quickly sharing information. So we decided we produce short webinars with crucial insights on efficient-lighting topics. Our first webinar is Tuesday, July 28th at 2 pm on Status of Federal Lighting Programs. Status of Federal Lighting Programs Amazing government programs that helped propel […] …
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Residential LED fixtures have a crazy wide range of efficacy, far surpassing the 40% span we reported on for commercial fixtures in November’s post. The wide range exists because of the recent history of Energy Star. Despite still being the best program for residential fixtures, it hasn’t changed its efficacy requirements since 2015. Other program […] …
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2019 brought our new blog, The Lightening Volt, replacing the occasional e-newsletter we produced for years. We hope you enjoyed the first post in our series on the status of LED fixtures, demonstrating a surprising spread in efficiency. We’ll continue that series into 2020. After that, we’ll keep sharing compelling posts on lighting that every […] …
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It’s a definitional mess discerning the difference between “residential” and “commercial” lighting fixtures. Everyone subjectively knows the difference between “residence” and “commerce”. But can one say that a product is one or the other? Is a sandwich “residential” or “commercial”? So it is with trying to categorize light fixtures as either “reside …
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LEDs are not all the same. The range of efficiency is surprisingly wide. We were talking recently to a colleague about lighting options for his office. He was shocked to learn that there were differences in efficiency. He thought “just going LED” was sufficient. It’s a widely-held misconception at this stage in the LED revolution. This is why, when we hear someone proudly proclaim “we went …
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In our upcoming posts, we will survey the current status of LED fixtures across different categories. As you read, lighting terminology will be important. Most critical is the difference between lighting efficacy and lighting efficiency, two different measures of output over input. Efficacy: Efficacy is the ratio of light output (lumens) to energy input (watts). […] …