Changing Landscape of Lighting Industry amid Covid-19 Scenario

In the last decade, lighting industry has seen more advancements and breakthroughs than 100 years before that, and the current scenario has further acted as a fuel in further acceleration of this market. With the advent of LED technology and digitization, the incandescent lamp electrical companies have now transformed into smart tech enabled lighting companies.

 

With digitization in the lighting world, the lighting information gets converted into a computer-readable format so that the information or data can be processed and communicated to other digital devices. And every LED light point, if connected, has potential to transfer information related not only to lighting but various other things purely due to the all-pervasiveness of light sources. 

 

As the unprecedented crisis, COVID-19, hit the world earlier this year, it definably put a halt to the industry, but just for a short minute. The largest corporations across almost every industry in the world put their heads together to come up with solutions and innovations that they thought would be relevant to deal with the current situation or for the ‘New Normal’ post COVID. Companies realized at the very beginning of this crisis that there will be a fundamental shift in the demands and needs of the customers and hence they have tried to up their game in order to be relevant. 

 

 

The main priority right now for the end consumer is their health and safety and many companies have come up with innovations in this domain in particular. According to many researchers, the UV rays have proven to be effective against the virus that causes COVID-19. Based on the data, it was determined that a dose of 22mJ/cm2 will result in a reduction of 99.9999% virus in 25 seconds. And incidentally, Signify has been developing strong UV-C application expertise for the past 35 years which has allowed us to launch a broad range of effective UV-C lamps, luminaires, devices, control systems and services. These can be used in a variety of air, surface, object and water disinfection applications which is quite essential in the current scenario. The effectiveness of the UV light source has also been validated by the Boston University and IISc, Bangalore. 

 

In order to add to the safety aspect, a comprehensive offering of software services (Apps and APIs) can help customers across all value spaces in offices which can help in implementing a smooth and “safe” transition back in the office. Interact Workspace App encourages social distancing with desk booking; can guide employees to pick the right workplace, enhance employee wellbeing and performance via mobile app light control; keep employees informed by providing access to spaces, amenities and latest company information; whereas Interact Space Management can help with the Opportunity to optimize space due to more people working from home; allow people quotas per Office space and help in setting up better cleaning protocols to minimize the spread of the virus. When used indoors, it uses occupancy detection in every fixture to understand when people are present and automate the use of lighting.

 

In case of street lighting, the scene management software reads activity and increases brightness where there’s more footfall, while dimming lights by 30% when sensors detect there are fewer people or cars around, in some cases even reducing street crimes. These lights are also energy efficient and have a lesser maintenance costs than conventional street lights. The Philips Solar Remote Monitoring Units (RMU) that is an advance solution for OffGrid solar street lighting. It helps in sorting technical issues real time that ultimately results in lowering the number of accidents and remote monitoring. We can also measure and collect data around energy consumption using Interact.

 

Moving on to well-being especially right now, lighting companies are also working towards innovations around bio adaptive lighting. There is sufficient proof that light  plays a crucial role in our well-being, behaviorism and profoundly affects the human body. Bio-adaptive lighting recreates the natural light curve to follow the body’s natural circadian rhythm throughout the day and promotes human comfort, wellbeing and performance. For example, a study found that when primary school students are exposed to (6000K-100fc average maintained) lighting, they performed 36% better at oral reading fluency, compared to 17% with control lighting. 

 

While the biggest concern right now is the pandemic that we are going through, there are a few prolonged issues that we cannot ignore. The other major global concern is the climate change and the rapid depletion of natural resources. Many companies have realized the need for efficient energy use and are promoting the use of connected LEDs over conventional lighting. This will reduce energy consumption by 53% and making the system intelligent could further improve savings up to 80%. We as a company have also set ambitious targets for sustainable revenues and sustainable operations. Today, we can proudly share that we are 100% carbon neutral, 82.5% of our revenues come from sustainable products, systems and services, we recycle up to 90% of our manufacturing waste and have decided to eliminate plastic from all consumer product packaging by the end of 2021.

 

- Signify