A group of manufacturers have formed the Consortium for Solar Lighting to accelerate adoption of solar lighting technology.
They plan to do this by developing universal specifications that allow customers to comprehensively evaluate commercial-scale lighting systems.
In the process, the group expects these specifications will foster awareness of solar powered lighting and the applications where it is a viable alternative to conventional grid-connected lighting technology.
Founding members are: Carmanah Technologies Corp. (TSX: CMH), Sharp Electronics, Inovus Solar, and SolarOne Solutions.
The group is focused on assessing the energy balance of a system design to ensure operation that is aligned with customer’s expectations.
Other aspects of the system design, including standards that apply to individual components of the system, lighting characteristics or aspects that relate to safety are already being addressed through national and international bodies such as Commission International D’eclairage (CIE), Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA), International Electrotechniques Commission (IEC) and Underwriters Laboratories (UL).
The first milestone of the of group is to develop common terminology and key metrics presented in a consistent, user-friendly form that can be readily adopted by municipal, government and commercial customers and specifiers.
A white paper on this topic, "Solar Lighting Recommended Practices: System Sizing – Preliminary Version" is scheduled for release on June 15, 2011.
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