Burlington-based iLLUMA-Drive developed an innovative low voltage smart control system (CENSE unit) that controls and powers a DC lighting system. They worked with the Energy and Power Innovation Centre to test and validate their innovative solution.
Research Area: Energy and Power Innovation Centre, IDEAWORKS
Funder: Ontario Centres of Innovation (OCE)
Research Team: Rubaid Khan, Benson Lam, Nikola Brujic
Future Ready Challenge
Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting systems have been used since 2008 due to their energy efficiency and lower costs. Most modern Canadian residential and commercial buildings include LED lighting as standard fixtures. Therefore, new innovations in LED lighting are now focused on optimizing energy consumption while maintaining acceptable lighting levels.
LED lighting systems use AC power from the grid to produce light. As an LED light itself is a DC device, the incoming AC from the grid needs to be converted into DC through a power converter (rectifier). This additional power converter causes some power losses, which are multiplied by the total number of LED lights that can be found in a typical North American residential unit.
R & D Collaboration
Burlington-based iLLUMA-Drive developed an innovative low voltage smart control system (CENSE unit) that controls and powers a DC lighting system. The company required unbiased third-party validation and testing to prove that powering LEDs using their DC CENSE unit is more efficient than powering with conventional AC systems. iLLUMA-Drive asked Mohawk College's Energy and Power Innovation Centre to conduct the validation and testing of their system.
Innovative Results
The research team built a test bed including two setups: (1) a CENSE unit powering LEDs and (2) the conventional AC-powered LED bulbs with converters. The test bed was designed to calculate and compare values, including converter/controller efficiency, light efficacy and light flickering. It is also configured so that future LED testing projects can be easily connected to the test bed.
The project results confirmed that powering LEDs using the CENSE unit provided lower losses and higher light quality than LEDs powered using conventional AC systems, says Derek Hopkins, CEO of iLLUMA-Drive.
"The testing and demonstration of our lighting products has allowed us to confirm that by powering LED lights using DC instead of AC power, there is an increased electrical efficiency of 6% per fixture, an increase in efficacy of up to 25% using high efficiency LEDs and a reduction of flicker by 18 times. With this information, we now have concrete data to support the energy efficiency advantages of our product in the consumer and industrial market."