Shining a Light on PCIM

­Summer’s right around the corner, but last month, it was PCIM Europe bringing the heat!

One of the kings amongst trade shows, PCIM Europe has called Nuremburg home since 1979, with a legacy stretching back further than all but a scant few events like electronica, CES, and several others.

It’s certainly established itself as an indispensable pillar of our industry, and Power Conversion and Intelligent Motion has become Europe’s leading power conference, arguably the globe’s.

Hopefully, the show was a successful one for you, and we hope you were able to meet with the PSD team, including and especially my European colleague, Ally Winning!

For my own part, I’ve never been, but I hope to make the pilgrimage to Nuremburg in the future!

For PSD, June is all about “Lighting + Illumination”, and when most folks hear that, their mind immediately goes to “solid-state lighting”. For good reason – the market is worth > $160 billion, and through a combination of federal and state regulations and the inefficiency of legacy tech driving investments in the future, solid-state lighting is basically inseparable from a broader lighting discussion.

At shows like Lightfair – and any other trade show – you just don’t hear companies bragging about their Edison Bulbs and CFLs anymore. Solid-state lighting isn’t even the topic du jour – it’s the only real topic of discussion.

And I’d like to highlight a June article that presents a very unique solid-state lighting perspective – horticulture lighting.

As Advanced Energy’s Frank Cirolia mentions, Indoor horticulture or Controlled Environment Horticulture (CEA) carries a number of benefits like the freshness of the food, improved food security, and a lower carbon footprint.

But the HVAC systems and lighting for these artificial environments bring exorbitant costs. Apparently, just those two, alone, account for 94% of a CEA’s energy usage.

On the lighting front, moving from HPS (high-pressure sodium) lighting to LEDs and introducing dimming for lighting (amongst other changes) can keep energy costs from spiraling out of control.

“LED is more efficient, delivering more light-per-watt consumed and it has a lifetime that is at least four times greater than HPS lights. It is also capable of a much greater dimming range, allowing greater controllability in CEA applications,” Frank says.

Frank also promotes usage of a 4 kW PSU as a centralized current source for medium to large scale LED lighting within horticulture applications.

He adds that “Replacing the individual LED drivers with a single remote PSU located outside the growing area yields significant savings in terms of installation and running costs.”

Best Regards,

Jason Lomberg

North American Editor, PSD