Lighting with daylight, using windows? How passee!

One of my very favourite blogs would have to be renewable energy access, if you are a renewable energy geek like me you will probably also enjoy the regularly updated site.

There are a large number of interesting ideas passing through but one that really caught my eye recently was a technology for collecting sunlight and piping it through buildings using fiber optics.

I love this because:
1. Lighting is often a large cost in terms of energy and climate change.
2. Lighting is often really poor, daylight is such an improvement.
3. It's a stageringly obvious idea with huge potential, the fiber optics can be aslong as you like.

The hybrid solar lighting technology uses a rooftop-mounted 48-inch
diameter collector and secondary mirror that track the sun throughout the
day. The collector system focuses the sunlight into 127 optical fibers
connected to hybrid light fixtures equipped with diffusion rods visually
similar to fluorescent light bulbs. These rods spread light in all directions. One
collector powers eight to 12 hybrid light fixtures, which can illuminate about
1,000 square feet. During times of little or no sunlight, a sensor controls the
intensity of the artificial lamps to maintain a constant level of illumination.

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