The Hon. Lily D'Ambrosio Vic Minister for Industry
Minister for Energy and Resources

SOLIS and IDA Victoria have attended the first day of Australian Smart Lighting Conference 2015 or try #auslight2015.  This is conference for the lighting industry so no specific topics dealing with light pollution.  The conference does give an excellent overview of where various organisations are at with new technologies and ideas in the Australian sphere.

The current trend in the bread & butter component of the lighting industry, street lighting, is the refits of LED streetlights.  This is also a trend across the world in the USA and Europe in particular, I also discovered today that China is also racing ahead.  Some of these programs in other countries, and an example is the city of Davis, California where an LED program was halted and assessed on the premise of community amenity because the CCT of the newly installed lights was considered by the residents to be too high.  The high CCT of these lights was felt to be too harsh and too much glare.  The high CCT results in a very sharp white colour more suitable for clinical hospitals than residential streets.

So where is the Australian LED program at?  The Hon. Lily D'Ambrosia is Victorian Minister for Industry and also the Minister for Energy and Resources, she spoke at length regarding the national positioning of Victoria as the leading State for road lighting efficiency.  All State Govts. and the Federal Govt have schemes that encourage the replacement of old technology road lighting with energy efficient road lighting and of course this means LEDs, the greater the efficiency gains the greater the incentive.  This means that the blue-rich LEDs will almost always win out.

I'll leave the actual numbers for another blog, I think SOLIS and IDA Victoria need to be suggesting that  any efficiency gains should be accepted and that lower CCT lights will also bring savings and additional benefits without the risk of blue-rich light