Learn more about our lighting technology:
- California Lighting Technology Center
- Vacuum Microelectronics Group
- “UC Davis creates guide for home energy code changes,” News Service, 9.26.05
- “Shining a brighter light,” News Service, 6.13.05
- “UC Davis bathroom light promises savings and safety,” News Service, 5.27.05
- “UC Davis adds California Lighting Technology Center,” News Service, 7.1.04
Our researchers involved with lighting technology:
- Michael Siminovitch, director, California Lighting Technology Center
- Konstantinos Papamichael, associate director, California Lighting Technology Center
- Charles Hunt, professor of electrical and computer engineering
- Erik Page, director of engineering, California Lighting Technology Center
Lighting the way
Here is a time-traveler’s look at the possible future of energy as influenced by UC Davis activities — a preview of everyday life as we might experience it five to 50 years from now.
Predicted timing: 2015
While the lights in our homes have changed from energy-hogging incandescent bulbs to efficient compact fluorescents, the lights in our offices are neither. Instead, they are light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. And they came to our offices via a technology pioneered by UC Davis in 2007.
Back then, we were familiar with LEDs in traffic lights and automobile headlights; compared with their conventional counterparts, LEDs were brighter, lasted longer and used less energy.
But the truly big energy gains in lighting were waiting in our offices, where lights accounted for one-third of building electricity use.
The main barrier to progress was the lack of a technology that gave good task lighting. Then engineers and designers at the California Lighting Technology Center at UC Davis designed a suite of LED-based office lamps.
Slim, ultrabright and go anywhere
Dubbed the Personal Lighting System, the fixtures were slim, ultrabright and went anywhere — mounted under cabinets or freestanding on desks and floors. They gave users full control over their office lighting environments at half the energy, with less glare and eyestrain.
The program was a landmark in university-government-industry collaboration: The UC Davis group developed the lighting system with funding from the California Energy Commission’s
Public Interest Energy Research program. Industry partner Finelite, of Union City, co-developed the system and led the marketing and distribution program.
CLTC Director Michael Siminovitch and engineers Erik Page and Kevin Gauna watched with satisfaction as throughout California, the Personal Lighting System was incorporated into both new construction and office retrofits.
Within just a few years, the LED lights saved the amount of energy that would have been produced by three medium-size power plants.
— Sylvia Wright