The US Department of Energy announced the winners of its fifth annual Next Generation Luminaires (NGL) Design Competition for outdoor lighting with Relume Technologies, GE Lighting, Edge Lighting and the Lighting Quotient taking “best-in-class” honors.
The competition was launched in 2008 to promote excellence in the design of energy-efficient LED commercial lighting fixtures, or “luminaires.” A panel of eight judges from the architectural lighting design community evaluated 120 outdoor lighting entries from 42 manufacturers based on lighting quality, appearance, construction, serviceability, efficacy and value. The best-in-class winners for outdoor lighting are:
- The Lighting Quotient (West Haven, Conn.): Awarded best-in-class for its fraqti Outdoor – Style S170 facade lighting fixture.
- Relume Technologies, Inc. (Oxford, Mich.): Awarded best-in-class for its Oxford decorative acorn streetscape and walkway fixture.
- GE Lighting (East Cleveland, Ohio): Awarded best-in-class for its Evolve LED Scalable Cobrahead roadway lighting fixture.
- Edge Lighting (Chicago, Ill.): Awarded best-in-class for its TV and Dial LED decorative wall sconces.
Design competitions are part of DOE’s national strategy to accelerate solid-state lighting technology advances from laboratory to marketplace. Solid-state lighting, which includes both LED and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technologies, has the potential to save Americans $30 billion a year in energy costs by 2030, according to the DOE.
The NGL Design Competition is sponsored by the Energy Department, the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America and the International Association of Lighting Designers.
In related news, a DOE representative speaking at a conference said that in 2013, solid state lighting manufacturers will be able to get Lighting Facts Label recognition for all members of a product family, while only fully testing one product, according to LEDs Magazine. The change comes as the DOE tries to simplify the process for manufacturers to receive Lighting Facts Label recognition for multiple related products in a family.