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Minnesota Technology Magazine - Winter 2007

A Bright Idea

Aveda Corp. puts a new hybrid lighting system to the test.

—Becky Aldridge

lamp In the production/manufacturing office space at Aveda’s corporate headquarters in Blaine, six employees have been bathing in a new light since May 2006. On sunny days in this windowless interior office space, the sun shines inside as well as outside. The trick: a hybrid solar lighting system that melds sunlight and standard electricity, and which was developed by the U.S.Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Not surprisingly, the system has been a big hit at Aveda, which prides itself on its a green leanings.The company’s mission includes striving “to set an example for environmental leadership and responsibility,” and it is an EPA Green Power Partner (a partnership program that encourages organizations to purchase environmentally friendly power). “People love it,” says Vicky Melen, Aveda’s global communications manager.“ They like that it’s kinder to the environment.”

By some estimates, indoor lights account for 25 percent of the electricity used in the United States. And, on top of that, up to 75 percent of the electricity that incandescent lights draw is wasted completely. Hence the business appeal of the hybrid solar lighting. Even better, the technology is relatively simple.“ A 4-foot-diameter parabolic mirror tracks the sun and concentrates the sunlight into fiber optic cables,” explains Jim Gausman, Aveda’s senior technical engineer. “The fiber optics deliver the sunlight to standard fluorescent light fixtures. Additional solar diffusers installed in the light fixtures [which look similar to fluorescent tubes] deliver the light to the office space. The fluorescent lights have dimmable ballasts with sensors; the electric lights dim off when the sunlight is available, but readily [come] back on when a cloud drifts in front of the sun.”

One result is a “nicer light,” says Melen. Another result is energy savings. Gausman notes that on a sunlit day, the system reduces the power required to light the offices by about 50 percent.

The price tag isn’t cheap—Aveda split the $24,000 cost for the beta site equipment and installation with Xcel Energy. But as Gausman adds, “Sunlight Direct [the company that ORNL is spinning off to market this technology] reports that the price of systems is dropping dramatically as a result of their use of the information gathered at the beta test sites and from economics of scale.”