The Grid Magazine

Halogens and LEDs have long served as the mainstay of the retail industry to create atmosphere, cement brand and display merchandise to maximum effect. Multi-layered techniques ranging from ambient lighting to accent, wash and feature lighting provide stores with ample choices to differentiate their brand, and highlight spaces or merchandise as needed. Sergio Padula, Technical Director at iGuzzini Middle East says: “From small shops to large commercial spaces, light is a powerful marketing element: it suggests, guides and prepares to purchase, converting stimulations into active behaviours. “Lighting of a shop must enable both a general and detailed vision of the displayed goods, thus ensuring a faithful reproduction of chromatic ranges for the observer. Lighting for shops and commercial spaces aims not just to make the goods on sale appear at their best, enhancing their qualities, but also to create an environment in which shoppers can easily make choices and recognise the value of the brands on display.” However, with the evolving market dynamics and growing competition, brands have necessitated a change in the lighting philosophy, moving from just “illuminating spaces” to “how people see them.” Currently most lighting contractors are delivering an effective balance of the two components, where vibrancy of colours is not compromised and goes hand in hand with mood enhancement. Roger Sexton, VP specifer Service at Xicato believes that the ability to create well-designed and sustainable space starts with an understanding of how people see and respond to light. “Once we understand the nature of the desired light, we apply innovation and technology to design the right quality of light and then package it into modules that enables effective and efficient luminaires. We believe that with better light, shoppers will buy more, diners will enjoy their food more and guests will be happier and feel more comfortable.” Xicato is a leading developer of superior light quality from LED modules and has set an entirely new aesthetic standard for LED lighting in professional and domestic settings. Tejas Doshi, Co-Founder & Chief Design officer, Light and Beyond agrees with the concept, and believes there is a need to reintroduce darkness into retail stores so customers feel comfortable and the staff is more aware. “Lighting is all about a feel good factor and not a looking good factor. Even the simplest of right lightining can create magic.” Light & Beyond are leading lighting consultants with a portfolio of strategic projects across the globe including the UAE.

LED VERSUS HALOGEN

New LED technology has played an important role in the transformative shift in lighting design and philosophy, as well as the need of energy effeciency. Leading lighting brands such as Xicato have a range of LEDs covering a wide spectrum of colour rendering needs, while being energy efficient and “tunable” thus equipped to replace the customary halogens in the retail space. Mohammad Darwish, Technical manager at Tridonic Middle East FZE, says: “A few years back, manufacture of different colours of LEDs and maintaining their colours was a challenge. Today, though, using state of the art phosphors with the highest quantum efficiency is the norm for most reputable LED manufacturers. Different light temperatures and colours as well as excellent colour rendering with high efficacy are easyly achieveble. Because of this LEDs are much better than halogen lamps, especially when it comes to power consumption and nominal lifetime hours.” Tridonic, a 60 year old leading innovation driver on the lighting market and pioneer of the digital lighting control is now focusing its attention increasingly on LEDs as the technology of the future. Padula from iGuzzini also believes colours LEDs are here to stay. “by now LEDs have reached a very high level of colour renderings on the various spectrums, and are able to fully replace halogen lamps. The new technologies, such as GaN on GaN (Gallium Nitride on Gallium Nitride) which has recently been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, have optical transparency and high thermal and electrical conductivity, enabling a very robust, simple LED design that delivers maximum light output and performance can easily demonstrate this.”

Xicato, who has taken massive strides in the field of developing LEDs with a huge gamut of colour rendering, believes good LED technology can replicate the ‘best in class’ natural colour rendering of halogen. Additional benefits of LEDs lie in the cost of ownership such as energy efficiency and longevity. adds Roger Sexton from Xicato. Some industry experts however have mixed reviews on the purported CRI (Colour Rendering Index; a scale from 0 to 100 that describes the degree of reality that the light source makes an object appear to the human eye) of new colour LEDs. “Honestly it’s still difficult to beat halogen in terms of colour. LEDs are reaching there but are still not quite there yet. Also it has become difficult for us as lighting designers and consultants because every LED manufacturer has its own shade of 3000k , 4000k , 5500 k & 6500 k, making it dif ficult for us to mix and match fixtures to achieve our concept,” says Doshi

DISADVANTAGES OF LEDS

While colour LED technology and usage is ramping up rapidly, some disadvantages and challenges still remain. In many applications, LEDs are being seen as expensive compared to other light sources though Sexton from Xicato is quick to point out that while the initial price is a disadvantage, this is dwarfed by the cost of ownership savings. Padula from iGuzzini agrees that LEDs might appear expensive at the outset but the high initial cost of an LEDbased system is offset by lower energy consumption and lower maintenance costs. “When comparing the lifespan of different technologies, we can see that halogen lamp will switch off first then halide lamp followed by flurocent lamps. LED lamps will be the last to switch off, gradually and not suddenly. Maintenance costs can be reduced or even eliminated with LEDs and their specificaly designed power supplies. To evaluate the cost effectiveness of a LED solution with respect to a traditional solution, we must consider the efficiency of the entire system, and not of the lamp only: LED optical systems generally have a higher output than standard systems because they reduce the causes that generate efficiency losses.” Padula adds. Mohammad Darwish from Tridonic points out some more complicated and technical disadvantages of LEDs. “Properly engineering the colour LEDs fixtures – and LEDs, in general – can be a bit tricky. Optimising the performance of LED lamps largely depends on the engineering behind the fixtures, perticularly its thermal management. Incorrectly managing the heat being generated by the diodes can cause deterioration of the LED chip itself. Overdriving the LED chip will result to overheating of the entire fixtures which causes faliure. “Over time and upon exposure to extreme temperature, the LEDs can shift colours and, eventually, not be able to achieve the CRI that they have been designed to achieve. This can eventually become a disadvantage, especially when you are using them for the purpose of retail and presentation. Lastly, Darwish adds that LED lighting manufacturing still isn’t regulated by any set standards, leading to a lot of new players with new “innovations” being present in the market who meet only the minimum energy efficiency requirements, and sometimes, even less than that of CFLs. However, despite the pitfalls, Darwish feels that “in terms of cost efficiency, ecolution, (ecological solutions for lighting), and energy savings, LEDs are still the way to go,” adding that it “is foreseen that – eventually – even in fuel-rich countries, LEDs will be the norm when it comes to lighting requirements.”

LIGHTING TRENDS & FUTURE

The biggest trend indicated by industry experts is Smart Lighting, the natural fallout of the sustainability drive. “Smart lighting is the most important trend in lighting today i.e. adding connectivity and awareness to LED modules to maximise the retail experience and further minimise running costs,” says Xicato’s Sexton. Speaking about trends, Padula from iGuzzini highlights an increase in applications of dynamic light, not necessarily RGB but also the tunable white. Doshi from Light & Beyond belives tunable LED lighting that can even simulate sunlight is a new trend to watch out for. He also feels OLED technology will provide a fresh twist to store and merchandise lighting. “OLED gives lots of flexibility and it is becoming cheaper day by day. OLED can be integrated in furniture and since it’s bendable we might see uniquely designed furniture with OLED lights. I also see a lot of interactive and dynamic lighting installations for window displays,” he adds. LED’s are being touted as the technology of the future for the trail-blazinginnovations in the field. The oppurtumaty for LED fixturesto be used in merchandising has grown substantially with the development of white LEDs. Plus with various options for colour and CRI depending on the application, retailers can select a 4100K with a high CRI for best accentuating diamonds and jewellery, or 2900K LEDs and HICRI for leather and dark tone products. Powerful, flexible and easy to install the excellent colour saturation of the new range of LED’s will make them perfect and long-staying partners for retail environments.

NEW COLOUR LEDS – FACTS IN FOCUS

LED sources produce heat just like traditional sources but don’t emit ultraviolet or infrared light. The absence of ultraviolet and infrared light makes LEDs ideal for retail, where these radiations could be damaging. COB LEDs with optibeam optics reflects the lightbeam in various directions, thanks to their microbeam surface. This innovative technology ensures that the light is mixed and prevents the colour unevenness generated by LEDs resulting in extremely clean lighting effects. This optic improves colour uniformity by eliminating halos and removing stains or double rings that may be generated by traditional LED lamps. Another example of state of the art technology is Xicato LED modules, which are used by iGuzzini in projects where colour fidelity is the driving force. For retail spaces that require a very high colour rendering, iGuzzini provides luminaires with a CRI greater than 90 and an excellent red colour rendering, equal to 55. CRI is rated on a scale from 0 to 100. The higher the number, the object illuminated will show its true colour. Under the sun, true colours are revealed; daylight has a CRI 100. iGuzzini technologies guarantee the emmission of the light flux at the beginning of the life cycle and a stable CCT (colour consistency) for its entire duration for all LEDs installed in each unit and between all fittings with the same CCT. The emitted light reaches the target areas with utmost accuracy and uniformity, eliminating

LIGHTING POLLUTION – A RETAIL HAZARD?

On a different note, some lighting industry experts believe “lighting pollution” is becoming a serious nuisance in retail lighting, where ‘bright’ vs ‘brighter’ is seen as effectual selling strategy. “I feel you should stress on balance lighting for retail stores. If you notice in malls, every retail store is trying to compete with the other with lighting. If Store A is bright Store B has to be brighter. This is what we call Lighting Pollution. I think they feel if their stores are brightly lit then it would attract more customers. Surely it does but are those customers buying from them? Very bright light would actually be very irritating after some time and it doesn’t create the right contrast for human eyes to see products properly. Stores need lighting consultants for this balance. And mall managements should have strict rules to avoid lighting pollution”.