LED Professional Review - LED professional Review (LpR) - Issue 62

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ISSN 1993-890X

Review

LpR

62

July/Aug 2017 | Issue

TTB: Jamie Singerman io

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Research: AlGaN/GaN-on-Si FET Drivers ht

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Technologies: High Frequency LED Drivers

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Applications: Interior Automotive Lighting

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CATEGORY EDITORIAL

LaaS Two years ago, following the circular economy strategy, Philips launched one of the first systems where the option for “Light as a Service (LaaS)” was installed at Schiphol Airport in The Netherlands. Circular economy is characterized by customer access over ownership, business model innovations, innovations for material, component and product re-use, products designed for disassembly and serviceability. Philips retained ownership of all the equipment, while the Schiphol Group leased it for the duration of the contract.

Philips’ global head of sustainability, Henk de Bruin, describes the need to ‘decouple our material use and energy consumption from economic growth, and to experiment with leasing contracts instead of relying on a “boxed product” business model.’ When Philips worked on the fit-out of the practice’s offices in Amsterdam, architect Thomas Rau said: ‘I’m not interested in the product, just the performance. I want to buy light, and nothing else.’ The result was a lighting system that made extensive use of free, natural light and specially adapted LED fittings with a combined daylight sensing and control system to cut energy use, provided as a service. But there are also other examples already on the market. One example is Zumtobel’s LaaS scheme called NOW! In a comparison of the pros and cons for a LaaS, we find there are good arguments for both sides: Pros: • No upfront investment • Allows nominal upgrades to be completed within the existing operational expenditure of the contract • Subscribers are immediately cash flow positive • Constant energy savings • Burn outs are not your responsibility • Quality service providers make sure that upgrades comply with the latest local and federal requirements Cons: • You’ll be held to the terms of the agreement for the duration of the contract • Net monthly costs reduced, but not as much as if you make the up-front investment in the project since you’ll have to factor in monthly lighting as a service payment • Like any payment program, the interest and fees associated with breaking the total cost into monthly fees will result in an overall cost that is higher than the cost of paying for everything up-front LaaS business is expected to grow by roughly 10% per year over the next five years.

Recently the Rocky Mountain Institute in the US released a report called “Lumens as a Service” focusing on how to capture the technology-enabled business opportunity for advanced lighting in commercial buildings. They have pointed out that, together, advanced lighting technology, digital controls and third-party control systems can accelerate the growth of the LED market in general. This will especially improve or enable daylight harvesting, occupancy tracking, demand-response and peak load shaving/shifting, distributed supervisory control over lighting and individual local control over lighting.

Circular economy in lighting and LaaS business models will dramatically influence product designs, especially the digitalization of systems. In this issue you can read about how to prepare your design to get ready.

Have a good read.

Yours Sincerely,

Siegfried Luger

Publisher, LED professional

© 2017 Luger Research e.U. | Issue 62