Solid-state lighting design competition announces winners

Santa Clara, CA--Winners of the third annual Next Generation Luminaires awards were announced yesterday at the 12th annual Strategies in Light conference and exhibition>, which covers the markets and applications of high-brightness LEDs.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, and the International Association of Lighting Designers, the design competition was launched in 2008 to promote excellence in the design of energy-efficient LED luminaires for general illumination in commercial lighting applications.

This year, 42 commercial LED lighting products were recognized for excellence. Out of 138 entries from 61 different lighting companies, 33 were chosen as “recognized” winners and four were chosen as “best in class.” An additional five products were deemed “notable,” a new category created for those NGL entries that might not yet be considered specifiable but nevertheless have at least one outstanding characteristic deserving of recognition.

A panel of 12 judges from the architectural lighting design community evaluated the entries based on performance, appearance, construction, and submitted photometric data.

The best-in-class winners came from four different manufacturers and covered four different areas of lighting:

::The Lighting Quotient for its fraqtir Linear Concealed LED Luminaire cove lighting fixture

::Philips Color Kinetics for its eW Burst Powercore facade lighting fixture

::Koncept Technologies Inc. for its Equo LED Desk Lamp task lighting fixture

::USAI for its NanoLED recessed accent lighting fixture.

Winners in the recognized category represented a wide range of manufacturers and applications, such as accent track lighting, wall washing, industrial lighting, recessed downlighting, decorative pendant lighting, in-grade lighting, street and area lighting, and general illumination.

Source: Next Generation Luminaires Web site.