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Date Announced: 13 Jul 2011
Consortium founders identify gap in industry standards for solar lighting systems.
VICTORIA, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Consortium for Solar Lighting (“CSL”) announces the release of Solar Lighting Recommended Practices: Introduction, a preliminary guide to the effective sizing of solar lighting systems. Representing the first technical paper by the newly formed Consortium, to which Carmanah Technologies Corporation (TSX: CMH)(Pink Sheets: CMHXF). is a founding member, the introductory document defines the process of selecting and configuring a solar lighting system to ensure that the system will operate reliably 365 days a year.
According to CSL founding members, a gap in lighting industry standards exists surrounding the effective sizing of a solar lighting system, which can adversely affect the rate of solar adoption in the lighting industry. The CSL was formed in early 2011 with other founding members Sharp Electronics Corporation, Inovus Solar, Inc., and SolarOne Solutions, Inc. to accelerate the adoption of solar lighting technology through the development of specifications intended to support customers’ fair and comprehensive evaluation of commercial-scale lighting systems. The CSL believes that recommendations such as this introductory guide will help foster awareness of solar powered lighting and the applications where it is a viable alternative to conventional grid-connected lighting technology.
This “Introduction” document represents the first installment of the CSL Recommended Practices reports, which presents an overview of the Consortium’s mission and discusses the emergence of solar lighting as a new category of outdoor lighting. The paper then investigates current industry standards as they relate to solar technology and where the notable system sizing gap exists. Standards such as NEC, UL, CE and IES (among others) touch on a few aspects of solar lighting, but the CSL contends that no standard addresses solar lighting directly.
The purpose of the recommended practices document is to sift through and pull together information on best practices from the array of existing standards. Where existing standards are silent on important topics, the CSL will continue to add new information and recommendations. The preliminary document presents solar lighting terminology and diagrams in a user-friendly form with the expectation that the practices can be readily adopted by municipal, government and commercial customers and specifiers. The paper is now available to the public at no cost.
In addition to accelerating solar lighting adoption, the CSL is driven to communicate the importance of energy balance of a solar lighting system to ensure that operation 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”).
To view Solar Lighting Recommended Practices: Introduction and to learn more about the CSL, please visit www.consortiumforsolarlighting.com. According to the CSL, the full 1st edition of Solar Lighting Recommended Practices: System Sizing will be released in the Fall of 2011.
Source: Carmanah Technologies Corp.
E-mail: ddavies@carmanah.com
Web Site: www.carmanah.com
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