Comments for New Dimmable Bulbs Could Save Gigawatts at http://www.ecogeek.org , comment 1 to 28 out of 20 comments http://www.ecogeek.org Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:46:06 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-19189 @Clinch Under that definition, incandescent lights are 100% efficient, since we're also counting "light energy" in the infrared! Check out what lumens really are. Basically it's a weighting based on how well our eye can see different frequencies of light. So infrared gets no points (even if there's lots of energy there), blue a little, green a lot, red not so much, and so on. They're really not compatible, so efficacy is the correct word (how *effective* it is). - Nate Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:51:52 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18433 (Warning: shameless, but relevant, plug coming) My company, Albeo Technologies (http://www.albeotech.com), makes a high bay LED fixture, with comparable lumen output and efficacy to metal halide. One significant difference, however, is the dimmability. Albeo's high bay LED fixtures are fully dimmable from 0 to 100%. However, LED becomes significantly [u]more[/u] efficacious when dimmed, while HID or fluorescent becomes less. In addition, LED fixtures last many times longer than either of those technologies. - tracy Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:47:41 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18319 Hi-low systems have been around for about a decade, warehouses would use them to "dim" aisles with no activity via a motion sensor, once sensor tripped, his would go to full brightness, however this was a fixed level of dimming not a variable one. Daylight harvisting is a requitement of Epact 2008, therefore this technology would be ideal for new construction. BTW a standard 400W MH draws 460 Watts with magnetic ballast. - Sean Kidd CEM Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:21:26 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18305 40% is a huge gain ! Post linked on http://eng.fidgee.com - Feeds from the Geek Side - Olivier Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:50:16 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18171 Oh come on, that's just taking the piss now - Clinch Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:21:27 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18165 Buggy software here. As I've emailed Hank multiple times. I hit "Add" and nothing happens (except for a little pinwheel spinning). Sometimes my posts adds, sometimes not. Yesterday I just left the page tab open and hit "Add" periodically through the day. I'd say about half or less times the post added. Way past time to fix this problem. Perhaps someone could donate a few minutes and take care of this. It's got to be a minor problem. - Bob Wallace Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:59:52 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18164 Buggy software here. As I've emailed Hank multiple times. I hit "Add" and nothing happens (except for a little pinwheel spinning). Sometimes my posts adds, sometimes not. Yesterday I just left the page tab open and hit "Add" periodically through the day. I'd say about half or less times the post added. Way past time to fix this problem. Perhaps someone could donate a few minutes and take care of this. It's got to be a minor problem. - Bob Wallace Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:45:28 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18163 Dimming for an HID lamp is nothing new; this technology has been around for years. It requires the purchase of special ballasts which is non-standard in most manufacturers’ standard luminaires. These ballasts are often much heavier and bulkier than today’s electronic ballast technologies and often cannot fit into the off-the-shelf luminaires. I had this installed on a lighting design project about 7 years ago. Don't get me wrong, I am all for it, just don't call it new. Spuffler is correct on the efficacy argument but because the ballast is essentially regulating the voltage output to each lamp the intensity of each lamp should be very similar. It is difficult to get a client to buy into this technology when they are too often confronted with rising upfront building costs. I applaud those who see beyond the initial investment years and realize the longevity of energy savings turning into profitability in the long term. - Corey B Fri, 29 Aug 2008 05:34:37 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18161 @Spuffler It could still be efficiency though, as you're converting electrical energy on to light energy, and as they're both energies, they are related quantities. As for the web page refreshing and such, it does happen, it just takes a while (sometimes over a minute). But the comment submission has something on it so you can't post twice within two minutes, so I still think he's purposely spamming. And the blog hosting software used seems to be bad on all browsers (and by 'all' I mean both IE and FF), but it sees that there's something in the works to update this site to something that runs better (or I think there was). - Clinch Fri, 29 Aug 2008 05:08:24 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18154 Do mean "(in concert *with* skylights)"? And how about giving us the wattage of the old HID lights? 320 watts vs. ~540 watts? Gosh, go a big step further. If all HIDs were updated how many dirty coal plants could we close? How quickly could a Wal-Mart recover the changeover cost? This is an important development as businesses really understand the bottom line. Successful businesses know how to spend a buck to save two bucks unlike Joe Schmoe who's still burning incandescents. - Bob Wallace Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:23:15 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18152 Do mean "(in concert *with* skylights)"? And how about giving us the wattage of the old HID lights? 320 watts vs. ~540 watts? Gosh, go a big step further. If all HIDs were updated how many dirty coal plants could we close? How quickly could a Wal-Mart recover the changeover cost? This is an important development as businesses really understand the bottom line. Successful businesses know how to spend a buck to save two bucks unlike Joe Schmoe who's still burning incandescents. - Bob Wallace Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:42:11 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18151 Do mean "(in concert *with* skylights)"? And how about giving us the wattage of the old HID lights? 320 watts vs. ~540 watts? Gosh, go a big step further. If all HIDs were updated how many dirty coal plants could we close? How quickly could a Wal-Mart recover the changeover cost? This is an important development as businesses really understand the bottom line. Successful businesses know how to spend a buck to save two bucks unlike Joe Schmoe who's still burning incandescents. - Bob Wallace Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:06:06 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18149 Do mean "(in concert *with* skylights)"? And how about giving us the wattage of the old HID lights? 320 watts vs. ~540 watts? Gosh, go a big step further. If all HIDs were updated how many dirty coal plants could we close? How quickly could a Wal-Mart recover the changeover cost? This is an important development as businesses really understand the bottom line. Successful businesses know how to spend a buck to save two bucks unlike Joe Schmoe who's still burning incandescents. - Bob Wallace Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:04:21 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18148 FWIW, the software running this website did not refresh the new page after I submitted my comment, hence I wouldn't have seen the web page change AT ALL, and I might have submitted several times. Hence, try to be forgiving of Mr. Wallace, he probably thought nothing was happening, just as I felt moments ago. Hey Hank Green: try asking around in the support forums of this software: is this problem (e.g., failure to refresh after submission) just a FireFox issue, or does the software fail to refresh for other browsers? Me, I'm not about to change web browsers for the benefit of any website software. - Spuffler Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:58:35 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18147 Lumens (of light) per watt (of electrical power) is a ratio of unrelated quantities. Because, with HID, you will always draw electrical power to create lumens of light, you cannot properly call it "Efficiency". "Efficiency" would be appropriate to describe power converters, where watts come out after watts are consumed. My comment draws from industry terminology (IESNA); I've worked as a development engineering technician for HID electronic ballast development (re: Sylvania BA800SE and other HID lamps), and prior to that I had developed a family of DC to DC converters at an OEM. The proper term for 'lumens per watt' would be "efficacy", you would want lamps that were more "efficacious", not more "efficient". Regarding dimmability, it could be tricky in the real world; getting a row of dimmed HID lights to appear to be the same intensity is already electrically unpredictable, but in the end, after they all stabilized at their 'new' temperatures (assuming the row of HID lights would all be commanded to run at the same watts AND assuming all the luminaires were at similar environmental conditions), they should be relatively similar in intensity... after a while. If there is no added cooling on one lamp or another. If the lamp manufacturer has engineered the lamp chemistry accurately enough so that from one lamp batch to the next lamp batch, the lamps responded with the same lumens for each wattage. That last point is forced on the lamp maker: if batch to batch luminosity variations exist as they once existed in the past, imagine telling a WalMart facility engineer that a whole row of (PRICEY) HID lamps has to ALL be replaced (with lamps from the same production batch) when one has failed, because the other batch has different luminousity characteristics. - Spuffler Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:49:46 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18146 Do mean "(in concert *with* skylights)"? And how about giving us the wattage of the old HID lights? 320 watts vs. ~540 watts? Gosh, go a big step further. If all HIDs were updated how many dirty coal plants could we close? How quickly could a Wal-Mart recover the changeover cost? This is an important development as businesses really understand the bottom line. Successful businesses know how to spend a buck to save two bucks unlike Joe Schmoe who's still burning incandescents. - Bob Wallace Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:24:05 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18142 Do mean "(in concert *with* skylights)"? And how about giving us the wattage of the old HID lights? 320 watts vs. ~540 watts? Gosh, go a big step further. If all HIDs were updated how many dirty coal plants could we close? How quickly could a Wal-Mart recover the changeover cost? This is an important development as businesses really understand the bottom line. Successful businesses know how to spend a buck to save two bucks unlike Joe Schmoe who's still burning incandescents. - Bob Wallace Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:42:23 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18140 Do mean "(in concert *with* skylights)"? And how about giving us the wattage of the old HID lights? 320 watts vs. ~540 watts? Gosh, go a big step further. If all HIDs were updated how many dirty coal plants could we close? How quickly could a Wal-Mart recover the changeover cost? This is an important development as businesses really understand the bottom line. Successful businesses know how to spend a buck to save two bucks unlike Joe Schmoe who's still burning incandescents. - Bob Wallace Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:43:22 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18138 How is he able to spam like that?!? I usually have trouble making one post, let alone the same one 6 times! As for not living in Minnesota, I'd imagine it'd take more energy to actively cool an area with AC, than to passively keep somewhere warm with insulation. Also, it seems to be 320 watts from the current 450 watt bulbs. Although, with all the recent improvements in LEDs and such, they might soon replace HIDs, such as they have in some streetlights (although current HID's are more efficient than CFLs, so these new ones may already be better than LEDs for certain applications). - Clinch Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:36:01 +0100 http://www.ecogeek.org/efficiency/2045#comment-18136 Do mean "(in concert *with* skylights)"? And how about giving us the wattage of the old HID lights? 320 watts vs. ~540 watts? Gosh, go a big step further. If all HIDs were updated how many dirty coal plants could we close? How quickly could a Wal-Mart recover the changeover cost? This is an important development as businesses really understand the bottom line. Successful businesses know how to spend a buck to save two bucks unlike Joe Schmoe who's still burning incandescents. - Bob Wallace Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:55:39 +0100