Hybrid Solar Lighting with Fiber Optics & Traditional Lighting

Combining solar light from sunlight with incandescent or fluorescent artificial lighting lamps can maximize cost efficiency and quality of light.

Sunlight Direct produces hybrid solar lighting systems under $10,000 for retail and offices that reduce lighting costs as much as 60%. They also provide humanized light -- a reddish glow in the early morning, bright white light at noon and a reddish glow at quitting time to tell you to go home!

Use of fiber optics allows light transmission of 30-50 feet -- enough to light the top floors of a building. More research is needed to improve fiber optic transmission quality, but today's fiber optics are inexpensive and that helps save lighting costs.

Oak Ridge National Labs is also interested in hybrid solar to reduce costs and increase efficiency of hot water heating, IR heating and hydrogen production. With five hybrid solar lighting systems already in place and another 20 scheduled to be installed, the forecast is looking sunny for a technology developed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Hybrid solar light collects sunlight and pipes it into buildings using bundles of small optical fibers, show potentially significant energy savings in lighting and maintenance costs. An added benefit is that, for most uses, natural light is vastly superior to artificial light.

The most recent technology is Hybrid solar lighting, which collects sunlight and routs it through optical fibers into buildings where it is combined with electric light in "hybrid" light fixtures. Sensors keep the room at a steady lighting level by adjusting the electric lights based on the sunlight available. This new generation of solar lighting combines both electric and solar power. Hybrid solar lighting pipes sunlight directly to the light fixture and no energy conversions are necessary, therefore the process is much more efficient.