International Dark-Sky Association 2022 USA Conference today trendy news

International Dark-Sky Association 2022 USA Conference

International Dark-Sky Association and to walk us through that i’d like to welcome john roller good morning john good morning hey john real quick before we get started can you talk about your role in the business certainly hi my name is jonathan vollers i’m the technical manager here at creed lighting mainly focused on lighting qualification including energy star dlc and international dark sky association as well as running our photometry lab perfect all right well let’s get started all right so today we’re going to talk about

understanding the International Dark-Sky Association or ida what we’re going to do is step into excuse me uh you know so what is the International Dark-Sky Association it’s a non-profit organization that was started in 1988 with the goal of preserving and protecting the nighttime environment and our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting as you can see over on the right hand picture there that’s a that’s a shot of the milky way which i don’t know about you but growing up i didn’t see that too often and

even lived in a rural small town uh but certainly with a lot of sky glow that prevented me seeing that this was started by uh two astronomers and has grown significantly since 1988 you know they’ve now branched out across the world have over a thousand different lighting fixtures that have been certified uh have 133 different international dark sky places which are areas that you can go

see the night sky as well as make efforts to keep and preserve it they have 64 chapters across 18 different countries you can kind of see below obviously north america europe asia australia india south america chile um and so forth uh and then there’s some

examples of pictures around uh of those night sky environments sedona uh uh there’s uh this one up on the left is in england uh and you can kind of see down in the left hand corner here the before and after effects of you know when you have a glare fixture creating that light pollution and then what happens when that fixture is off and and allows you to see the night sky so it’s a significant um uh impact so kind of what does i ida do uh the areas they focus on is is they celebrate the night so increase awareness and the benefits

of of night for all living things and how light pollution is an environmental threat that individuals can help solve or humans can help solve we are the contributors for this environmental impact you know we have electric light uh we put it we install it we created it so those are things that we can do something about if we control it and um maybe regulate it a little bit where to limit its impact to the

environment and obviously it has effect on humans but it has effect on wildlife and obviously the night sky they also have dark sky protection is one of their focuses where they’re really looking to certify different areas as well as lighting fixtures or luminaires so

International Dark-Sky Association 2022 USA Conference

that’s one area of focus lighting where we live that’s the direct engagement with cities and communities trying to reduce light pollution and that’s through lighting policy and practice so they provide some tools for those communities and on how to advocate for it as well as implement it in a policy standpoint and then they have sky shed restoration uh you know implementing coordinated intentional uh international scalable actions to slow the halt and reverse increasing rate of light production so think about it this way you know we have uh the united states is very electrified um and so you have uh street lights in a lot of areas so reducing or

changing over those lights to better products that help reduce the amount of light pollution generated but also creating awareness as the rest of the world or you know as third world countries start to electrify more and more um you know really driving the awareness that hey let’s implement it right away from the start so the two areas that kind of cree lighting focuses on uh that kind

of impact our business are related to you know lighting where we live which is is you know lighting policy and communities and cities that require ida or similar type of requirements regarding up light or sky glow things of that nature that are installed or part of the

policy that we have to appreciate when we’re you know bidding into those areas and then obviously you know getting our products certified through their program here and that’s what i do for creed lighting so kind of how does outdoor lighting cause light pollution like you know why is it such a big deal um so you can see here an example on the left with a number of different uh photons being traced if you will some rays being traced where you know what happens to those photons and how do they affect uh the

environment so number one here is you know it’s directed up into the sky it could travel completely out of the atmosphere um and or maybe you know under number two that same type of ray might hit a satellite and be picked up or an astronaut taking a picture of the united states you know sees all that light from the different cities and the roads uh that we have um installed in our environment so those things like that and then you know number three here those rays could also have a chance uh to hit particles in

the atmosphere you know whether that’s uh ice crystals uh moisture of some kind uh dust particles anything of that nature and be reflected back down so that is what you can see on the right here this is contributing to that sky glow so you’re seeing reflected light and through you know going up into the atmosphere and then reflecting towards the camera here in this instance and then

International Dark-Sky Association 2022 USA Conference today trendy news
International Dark-Sky Association 2022 USA Conference trendy news

you know occasionally or you know light actually being emitted downwards and reflecting off surfaces will bounce back up and and and into the atmosphere and then number five is kind of showcasing something important too is that high angle light where you have you know kind of horizontal or just above horizontal light being spread out and that has a significant chance of being reflected back down you know causing sky glow or in this instance showing it going into an astronomer’s uh instrument and causing causing

an issue for them so these are all ways that that outdoor lighting can kind of contribute to sky glow and light pollution in the environment so now let’s say you know what can we do about it what are some ways that you know we know understand how light causes light pollution or outdoor lighting causes light pollution and you know the ies and ida have teamed up uh and this was only

released in april of 2020 so this is quite new if you haven’t seen it and come up with these five principles of responsible outdoor lighting so now you know you have the idea trying to protect dark skies and then you have the ies guiding us on how we’re going to

do it as lighting practitioners so one useful it we should have a clear purpose for light we shouldn’t just light to light the evening sky or our you know light all the different areas around our building or uh in our uh you know our land that we might own or something along those lines you know really having a purpose is it useful why do we have that light some of the things they talk about here are

International Dark-Sky Association 2022

using reflective paints or self-illuminous markers and signs for curbs and steps and things of that nature which allow for when light is present maybe from your car headlights you get that uh indicator for safety but it’s not self-illuminating it’s not you know it’s not

generating light into the atmosphere when no one’s around so being useful is really important just at the core and then really one of the great things about solid state lighting is this second feature which is targeted so light should be directed only where it’s needed so i have a security door i want to light that space i have a pathway to it i want that space lit but now with solid state lighting you can

actually take that luminaire and really control the light with with close optics doing very good things allowing very little spill into areas that are not needed where previous technologies you know typically we’re generating from a metal halide lamp or a low pressure sodium high pressure sodium whatever it would what might have been was creating an omnidirectional light source and then it had to be controlled down into the areas that you wanted it now you have a much more direct path and a much more

controllable method with solid-state lighting so that should be really really part of our focus when we’re selling to this is is really understanding what’s our application and how can we put the light there best um using the rps uh rp8 has is recently been updated and has a lot of guidance there on and and driving to that ies uh recommended at levels things of that nature and areas and and

ratios so that kind of leads us into the next one low light levels light should be no brighter than necessary so using the lowest light level required again at the rp level the recommended practice by the ies uh you be mindful of your surface conditions you know do you have high reflectivity or you know maybe very bright concrete or asphalt which you understand isn’t going to be as as reflective so those type of things understanding that and really driving to the lowest light levels one of the other interesting things is the rp’s

recently rp8 relaxed its ratio so it’s now 1 to 20 so that allows a lower light level requirement as well as a little bit relaxed ratio so overall your area should be less lit and then one of the great things with solid-state lighting is it can be controlled so much better than some of the traditional meth traditional technologies so turning them off on using timers motion detectors uh dimming more effectively um so all those things are in play now that can help reduce the impact to the space and the environment because you’re

International Dark-Sky Association International Dark-Sky Association International Dark-Sky AssociationInternational Dark-Sky Association International Dark-Sky Association International Dark-Sky Association International Dark-Sky Association International

International Dark-Sky Association 2022 USA Conference
International Dark-Sky Association 2022 USA Conference

controlling the light when you need it you know maybe your retail space is open until 10 o’clock at night and then an hour after that it dims down to 50 percent it’s on a motion detector pops up it actually provides better safety and security because then you see the area that is the motion detection has happened all those things are really really helpful and can ultimately reduce the amount of light is being produced in for a building or space and then one of the other things that they’ve agreed on or the last one here is is color is

really driving to a warmer color temperature um you know really the goal there is to drive down the amount of short wavelength or blue violet wavelength area that the light is producing the luminaire is producing and the reason why that is is that the shorter wavelengths and why our sky is blue during the day is uh those shorter wavelengths more easily reflect reflect and and and cause

sky glow so you know the longer wavelengths the reds uh typically don’t do as much uh or contribute as much to that sky glow so that’s that’s what they’re doing they’re not saying you know there’s a limit here but just try and drive it to a lowest level that makes

sense for your space for your area for your application now then this gets into cree lighting so how does cree lighting fit into this so what do we do to kind of contribute uh you know we create luminaires that meet the two criterias that you need to get ida dark sky approved we have uh bug ratings uh where the u equals zero so we’re not creating that horizontal or up light so we’re not contributing as as heavily with that horizontal or slightly above horizontal where you get that scatter effect um or you know we’re not

obviously having any light really directed up into the night sky itself uh which could also create contribute to sky glow and the other thing too is is we have driven down our cct ranges to offer um 3 000 kelvin and in some instances 2700 kelvin now as well as uh 2200 kelvin coming soon to a to a theater near you um is so see here are a couple examples of these fixture families that are listed uh rsw cpy 250 xspw uh some sea light product treveo some of our roadway products our osqr area product so all these have a u

equals zero and have three thousand kelvin available so if you happen to have an ordinance or an application which is requiring ida dark sky approval keep that in your back pocket that you understand we need to make sure that the the fixture is listed here we are using a unit that has an uplight of zero and it we are selecting a cct of 3000k or less to satisfy that ordinance or requirement that’s all i have today so i hope it was helpful and uh dwayne we can get into some questions all right great um like i do have a question

which uh area light families and wall packs come in 3000k so i know you kind of hinted about 2200 you want to you want to tackle that one real quick uh so all of these families that i have shown here are our products that are currently listed on the ida so they have at least 3 000 kelvin um available i believe the rsw is the only one that has 2700k currently available i believe it will have 2200k

soon i’m not sure the launch date of that um but that’s that’s coming yeah that’s an option yeah anything in the street like category um shouldn’t say too broadly the rule wouldn’t but the xsp the rsw and treveo would have 2700k options um you won’t find that as much in the area like space but yeah let’s say if you have the right opportunity and volume you know that could be looked at as a

special so again we would encourage you to reach out to your your sales contact and investigate that but we’ve seen more of it in the roadway space where you have a lot of fixtures and certainly in residential areas where there might be more concern [Music] about higher cct’s and some of the things that john highlighted yeah and i’ve seen it in uh certainly in there’s some california uh communities that have ordinances uh where they want 3000k or less especially in the residential areas um and so those i’ve seen

that implemented quite a bit and then obviously your coastal areas uh where you might get into in your florida’s where you you know not necessarily right on the beach where you might require a turtle light but like as you move away from those beaches and into more uh typical areas they want to still have that lower cct so yeah that’s it’s definitely been a drive over the last number of years

um this question says do we have i think it says do we have full spectrum light you want to talk about the spectrum of these solutions uh so typically i don’t have an example here but you know all of these all of our leds here are producing a relatively full

spectrum so you know you you may have a blue pump led so you have a blue peak uh but you have phosphor converting so you have way you know all the way to that red you know short or excuse me longer wavelengths so you know full spectrum is is kind of a tough statement um but uh our you know all of these lights are producing a a large uh range of colors uh to to then obviously represent the the space you know any product being reflected in it yeah there’s a question about i don’t know if you know much

about nsa and nba uh requirements um in terms of 2700k being suffice and eliminating shorter bandwidth so i think it has to do with what maybe military and what some of their special requirements might be if we had any conversations we’ve been pulled into those uh results at all um not really but i mean you know there are other areas that um you know obviously like we talked about turtle

lights where they’re limiting the amount of blue light you know maybe right on a beach uh actually observatories have um a lot of requirements which had driven them to still be using maybe even low pressure sodium uh as their option at current you know maybe in the last couple years obviously i think you’re getting into options now with leds that that would eliminate that requirement uh you

know they’d be able to be satisfied with solid state lighting so i i wouldn’t necessarily specif specifically to the government uh regulations um but um certainly uh in more commercial uh community-based requirements or are there are some areas that drive that yeah we have a question too about are we seeing more cooler uh lighting temperature requests from from customers and

they’re kind of curious about what’s the most popular color temperature we have any thoughts on that yeah our most popular color temperature still is 4000 kelvin and it’s really that is we’re talking about outdoor here right yes correct outdoor spaces yes obviously um though to be honest even indoor spaces commercial wise is still probably the most popular um so you know actually the interesting things is is leds now are are really so focused on 4000 kelvin that that’s almost uh typically four thousand five thousand

and fifty seven hundred k are all the same efficacy now because they’ve really focused on targeting for 4 000 kelvin being the optimal uh but yeah that is that is still kind of the bread and butter um and the interesting thing and one of the things that i think i’d like to see in the future is ida may be moving to the amount of blue light content which would depending on your led and your technology still might be 4 000 kelvin but it has lower blue light content than some standard that is created versus just a straight

3000 kelvin cct because that doesn’t necessarily um eliminate all the blue light you know compared to like you know some of the older technologies the halogen technology is going to have a a fair amount of blue light in it so you know blue wavelength i should say and so um you know understanding really more about the blue light content would allow for higher cct’s to still actually be ida approved i think but you know that’s that’s down the road and hopefully that’s something that uh we can get some science behind to

International Dark-Sky Association 2022 USA Conference

to give them a better better metric than just straight cct yeah there’s a there’s a little bit of a clarification on that one earlier question about the i think with the nsa and it really relates kind of more to flagstaff and tucson metro area for example requiring a narrow spectrum in you know 2700k you talk about 2200k you really need to probably look at the spectrum of the source that work even if that’s in the specification understanding what the ask is right yeah and i think those are okay those ordinances are based on um it’s

easier for some of the astronomy or uh tools to filter out narrow spectrums so if you have a full spectrum which i would advocate any outdoor lighting for general outdoor lighting and not near specific areas like a like a like an observatory or or or a beach for turtle environment type of thing that that’s where maybe narrow spectrum would be more helpful because they can then they understand what that spectrum is they can use filters to help eliminate that contribution and that clears up their sky if you will where a broader

spectrum maybe not i don’t want to use the word term full but a broader spectrum light like most of uh our products here um would would be something that that would be further away from those devices does that make sense yep there’s also a question about the cri on the 2200k solution that we’ll be bringing to the marketplace you want to comment on that um i believe it’s actually uh 70 cri um you know typical of an outdoor light um you know just because uh light is warmer does not necessarily the color render rendition

renditioning uh doesn’t necessarily have to be uh doesn’t automatically make it better per se um you know so that uh i think it’s 770 cri um i’m not 100 sure yeah i believe that to be the the case as well and if you look at you know 2200 high pressure sodium that’s typically uh yeah i was going to say replicate the color appearance of the source but certainly elevate the the color rendering experience right so that you know so that so that 2200 is still a broad spectrum uh you know phosphor converted you know broad

spectrum led light uh source uh where high pressure sodium is a very uh smaller wavelength produce you know very very narrow wavelength band produced so your color rendering is is is based on you know it’s if you check multiple reference color points and you only have a broad you know you have a broad spectrum versus a narrow spectrum you know that narrow spectrum as you said is like 20. you know you’re you’re not refer your color references is pretty atrocious uh where broad spectrum which you know we’re trying

to produce is creating a much better lighting environment to see those colors that are present yeah we had a presentation earlier on on turtle lighting and amber lighting was also kind of included in that but that’s another important distinction right so amber light doesn’t necessarily equate the turtle lighting either there’s there’s a spectrum requirement um [Music] for for a florida wildlife commission to kind of qualify so you do have to dig into the details to make certain that you’re delivering what the customer is expecting right yeah and i i think that’s important to understand here is that you know these type of lighting ordinances are you need

to go to those specific ordinances see what they’re requiring ida might be part of it you know maybe that’s only a portion of it maybe there’s some extra information there that we have to satisfy that we have to go you know be specific and dig a little bit uh and we can certainly help do that that’s the goal is that you know come and ask those questions of our teams at cree lighting and we can help provide that data and i’m happy to help in those regards well the question is is it difficult to provide safety levels uh a safety

environment with with warmer color temperatures any evidence of compromising safety with warm solutions no i don’t think so at all i think what you’re really doing is uh you know again the warm solution are warm solutions here whether you’re talking a 3700 kelvin or even you know the future coming 2200 kelvin is a broad spectrum light it’s it’s producing all your color spectrum where you’re going you know if something is green or red you’ll be able to see it um you know so from a safety and security standpoint it’s really

more about light levels and control of where those light levels go obviously you want them focused down you want them on the surfaces that matter you know maybe the wall around the door security door the pathway leading to and from it um those are those safety and security environment things are really uh enhanced by that broader spectrum as well as uh our control that a solid-state lighting product provides or can provide certainly cree lighting units provide okay hey do you know what you have time to maybe

quickly talk about the process of getting you know the list of products you have up here looks like kind of list if you just look at the family category so it’s a little bit different than than maybe getting somebody qualified for the deals anyone talked about how they might vary a little bit yeah so you know the idea is not trying to be a clearing house for every model number and and have it listed that you specifically go look line item by line item the goal is is for it to be a direction that you know this family of products has a u

equals zero products available and 3000k available 3000 kelvin or less i should say available in it so you still have to be responsible for buying the right fixture to meet the ida requirements for an audience ordinance but um the way that i would go about listing these products is i get the ies files together i get the spec sheets together you know which documents the the cct that’s available as

well as the ies pro the is files which show the distribution of light showcase to them that we hey we have that u of zero in all these different optics um for instance if we look at the cpy250 the flat lens is approved but the drop lens actually does have up lights so therefore that’s really not an appropriate choice choice for an ida application so um you know those are things that need to be

considered when when selecting out of the family that’s listed so again this is more of a guidance um that you know these are these fixtures have ida approved within the family you still have to be a little responsible on how you select out of that family perfect all right well if you want to go to the last slide i’ll close up shop um for the week i want to thank john for his presentation and his time i also want to thank the audience again for joining us and all the great questions you guys submitted looking a couple weeks out next

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