Street lighting and LEDs are key areas of focus at SALC

As the only event in North America that specifically targets the needs and concerns of the street and area lighting industry, next week’s Street and Area Lighting Conference (SALC) event is certain to feature extensive discussion of LED-based solid-state outdoor lighting. Organized by the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES), SALC takes place on September 26-29 in Huntington Beach, California.

Dawn Mitbo of Puget Sound Energy, the SALC Committee Chair, welcomes the industry, municipalities, specifiers and utilities to attend, stating, “Last year’s conference in Philadelphia was very well attended and we will be offering more of the same top quality presentations in Huntington Beach. This conference is a great opportunity to network with many hundreds of your peers, attend presentations by leaders in our industry, and walk an extensive exhibition area where all of our leading manufacturers [over 40 companies] will be happy to discuss products and trends.”

LED-related conference presentations and sessions include:

• “City of Los Angeles – Changing our Glow for Efficiency,” presented by Ed Ebrahimian of the City of Los Angeles
  
• “San Jose Case Study” presented by Nancy Clanton of Clanton & Associates and Laura Stuchinsky of the City of San Jose
  
• “CalTrans: Informed LED Purchase Decisions,” presented by Gonzalo Gomez of CalTrans
  
• A “Utility LED Tariff Panel”
  
• “Blinded by the Lights,” an LED presentation by Ronald Gelten of Philips
  
• “LED Specification and Design Fundamentals” presented by Cree’s Mark McClear
  
• “The Adoption of New Technology into an Old Culture,” presented by Ted Konnerth of Egret Consulting Group, who also spoke this year at PennWell’s Strategies in Light.

This year, The Climate Group will not only be presenting its global LightSavers program on the conference agenda, but attending with a large delegation of international attendees representing the municipal programs and projects in Asia, Australia and India, as well as New York City and Toronto. This is the first time that an international delegation or even individuals from countries outside of the United States and Canada will have attended SALC.

Philip Jessup, Director, Cities and Technology, The Climate Group will present “LightSavers: A Global outdoor LED Trial.” The LightSavers initiative is a global trial of LED street and parking area lighting aimed at accelerating use of LEDs and smart controls in 10 large cities on four continents, including London, New York, Toronto, Sydney, Tianjin, Mumbai and Kolkata. This session will lead a discussion of interim results from several of the trials.

Delegates will also meet exhibitors directly, facilitated through a introduction and matching event. Each exhibitor requesting to meet with the delegates will make a brief introductory presentation. Much like “speed dating” in “elevator pitch” format, the objective is make a good first impression, be interesting and sincere, and see where there is common interests, all with the objective of having another meeting.

Delegates will depart from the conference and head to Los Angeles for a city installation tour hosted by Ed Ebrahimian, director, Bureau of Lighting of the City of Los Angeles and Christopher Ruud, president of Ruud Lighting. This will be followed by a trip to San Jose for another presentation and tour of the LED streetlight and lighting controls trials hosted by Laura Stuchinsky, Sustainability Officer, City of San Jose and Amy Olay, San Jose Department of Transportation. While in San Jose, they will also tour the Philips Lumileds facility with an opportunity to see LED chips being manufactured and to discuss quality and technical issues with Lumileds staff.

Following on from SALC, the DOE Municipal Solid-State Street Lighting Consortium is hosting its first Annual Meeting on September 29. This meeting enables attendees to learn more about Consortium committee efforts related to developing model guidelines, launching regional education workshops, initiating the first Consortium demonstrations, and establishing interchange between related efforts and organizations.