Here comes the sun!
Ever been confined to a gloomy office on a sunny day? Of course you have. Are those productive days? Hardly. Luckily Swedish company Parans have found a way of bringing sunshine to your desk, making it easier to spend those working hours indoors when you would rather be somewhere else.
Natural light. According to Parans their lighting system gives you the sensation of standing under the foliage of birch trees on a sunny day.
Through a clever system of fresnel lenses and fiber optics Gothenburg based company Parans have found a way to bring natural lighting to even the darkest corners of a building. First the sunlight is collected by solar panels installed on the building’s roof or façade. The concentrated sunshine then flows through thin and flexible optical cables with high light transmission, before it ends up in a Parans luminaire spreading the sunshine where you want it.
Brightens your day
- There exists no other technology for existing buildings today that can both affect worker health and productivity, while dramatically reducing energy consumption, says Marc Bacher from Parans.
- After all, how effective is an energy efficient building if no one enjoys working in it?
The benefits of natural lighting are manifold. Sunlight has a continuous color spectrum that makes it good for your health; being exposed to sunlight makes us alert at daytime, while enhancing our immune system and general health. According to some studies natural lighting increases productivity by 6-16 percent in a workplace, and it makes shoppers stay longer and feel more at ease in stores, causing higher retail sales.
At installation the solar panel scans the sky to detect the
direction of the sun. It then learns and remember the solar path, so
that the lenses are always directed for maximum sunlight exposure. Fiber optics distribute the light. (Illustration Parans)
Save energy
You can't turn off your lights just because its bright outside can you? Well, you can now. Electrical lighting represents 40 – 50 percent of the energy consumption in commercial buildings, contributing to up to 30 percent of the buildings greenhouse gas emissions. By exchanging half of a buildings electrical lighting for Parans Fiber Optic Solar Lighting can lower the energy costs by up to 25 percent and emissions by up to 15 percent.
Natural light
The Parans solution will however only emit lighting when the sun is shining, and the clouds are not blocking the sun. It should not be seen as a complete lighting solution, but as other sources of natural light like atriums or windows. The thin fiber optic cables will be able to transmit natural lighting to spaces where there is no room for atriums, or where there are no windows. Typical for many office buildings and hospitals are that they are long wide buildings with work places or meeting rooms located throughout, many without windows. Natural lighting will in these cases enhance working conditions dramatically. In places like museums, the Parans system could light up artworks or historical artifacts in the natural light they were meant to be seen in. As the fiber optics filter out damaging UV rays, this natural light will not be damaging to neither people or objects.
And if necessary, this sunshine comes with an on/off switch.
Further reading:
Learn more about Parans technology
Other ways of harnessing the sun:
The sun heats up high school in Greenland
Quick facts:
40 – 50 percent of the energy consumption in commercial buildings goes to electric lighting.
Up to 30 percent of the buildings greenhouse gas emissions can be traced to electric lighting.
The Los Angeles area has an average of 9 hours sunshine every day.
And 300 million square feet of office space.
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