Jun 9, 2014

LED Lighting Standards Meeting Next Month In OrlandoSource: Dr. Erik Runkle

Next month a meeting to discuss horticultural lighting standards for light-emitting diodes (LEDs) will take place during the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS) annual conference in Orlando, Fla. It is scheduled to convene July 28, from 1:45 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. at the conference site — the Rosen Plaza Hotel in Orlando.

Any interested parties (growers, academics, lighting and utility companies, etc.) are invited to participate. Lighting efficiency standards are usually based on luminous flux, which is based on the eye’s sensitivity to light. Blue and red light, which are commonly used in LEDs for horticultural applications, have a relatively low luminous output.

In other words, these lights appear relatively dim However, from a photosynthetic perspective, their efficiencies are often relatively high.

Changing the energy efficiency standards to ones more appropriate for plants could have positive implications on utility rebates, grants/loans for energy efficiency improvements, etc.

The objectives of this roundtable meeting are to develop a consensus of whether new standards should be developed for lighting when used for horticultural (not human) applications, and if so, what metrics are of most importance and how to proceed.

This meeting will be open to anyone who registers for the ASHS meeting; conference registration is required. It will be on Monday, July 28 from 1:45pm to 3:45pm at the conference site, the Rosen Plaza Hotel in Orlando. Here’s a link to the roundtable discussion description.

Two separate sessions may also be of interest the following day: a four-hour colloquium on light quality and a two-hour workshop on commercial application of LEDs.

If you have any questions or would like to provide input in advance of the meeting, please contact the meeting facilitator, Dr. Erik Runkle of Michigan State University, at runkleer@msu.edu.