"Buried alive but still the best"
Luminoptics (now Lumenergi) was founded in the early 1970s by C.R. "Steve" Stevens and William Alling to develop electronic ballasts for the commercial and industrial lighting market. The products are proven to save over 70% of the energy consumed by this sector and were judged by independent experts in the field to be the best. A manufacturing license was granted to a large USA Corporation in 1981. The Company promised to develop and promote electronic ballasts worldwide to replace the inefficient magnetic ballasts which then had a virtual 100% market share. While they promised to be first in the marketplace they secretly planned to be second, and, as a result, the consumer was locked out of the option to use more energy efficient products for almost ten years. The dollar loss to the American consumer was in excess of five billion dollars per year. Instead of living up to their promises, the company chose to bury the Lumenergi technology to preserve and keep alive their energy wasteful but profitable conventional ballast lines. In 1984 Luminoptics filed a lawsuit to force this company to do the right thing . The result of two seven month jury trials (1989 and 1994) was complete vindication of Luminoptics and the return of the ballast technology which has been re-engineered to modern standards and is now coming on the market under the Lumenergi label..
Today the market in the United States for ballasts and control systems exceeds $700 million annually with electronic units accounting for well over 65% of all ballasts sold. Worldwide , approximately $3.0 billion (USD) worth of ballasts and control systems are sold every year.
Lumenergi is presently in the final engineering and pre-production manufacturing stage to produce a low cost (nineteen to twenty five dollar target to the user) full performance dimming ballast called the iB-100TM* which automatically interfaces with most lighting control systems. The first iB-100 ballasts are being produced now for testing and certification the 3rd and 4th quarter of 2008 with commercial production scheduled to commence in that time frame. For detailed specifications on the iB-100TM product please click on the Ballast Specification tab.
* The iB-100TM stands for "Intelligent Ballast". This DEB model interfaces automatically with most control systems (0-10V, DALI, PLC etc.) at no user cost. The ballast is the most efficient DEB on the market and the ballast efficiency is comparable to programmed start instant start ballasts while maintaining long lamp life. The same ballast operates 1, 2 and 3 lamp T5 and T8 3-4' lamps (T-12 can be operated with a minor change in the SKU plan. Manual and local lighting control through the use of a simple standard IR transceiver ($5 drug store TV remote control).
For additional background information on the company please see the two newspaper articles below (New York Times and Wall Street Journal) or contact Bill Alling at +1.361.779.8440 email bill@lumenergi.com
|
