Industry News

Based on its recent analysis of the green lighting controls market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes Lumisys with the 2008 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Industry Innovation & Advancement of the Year for its MINT(TM) Demand Response (DR) solution. Lumisys' energy management solution reduces costs by eliminating stand-alone lighting controls and enhancing interoperability of lighting with building automation, thereby optimizing energy savings.

Lumisys' R&D initiatives and go-to-market strategy reflect an indisputable understanding of the needs of the building environment to optimize efficiencies. Lumisys' lighting control solutions are based on localizing core functionalities of building automation systems (BAS) and lighting controls with respective experts and enabling an integrated systems infrastructure with a single point of accountability. This setup lowers the building owner's infrastructure costs and enhances energy savings.

Lumisys' MINT(TM) DR combines the Digital Addressable Lighting Interface (DALI), an internationally recognized standard for architectural dimming, with BACnet(R), the leading standard data communication protocol for building automation, to control DALI-compliant digital ballasts within a building.

"This seamless unification of two open standard protocols enables the BAS system to address a building's key energy management aspects, such as demand-response load shedding and daylight harvesting, to reduce wasteful energy consumption," says Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst Konkana Khaund. "Open standard protocols ensure interoperability and help influence the intrinsic value of BAS for efficiency and operational performance in buildings."

With North America's utility grid currently reeling under increasing pressure, there is a focus on curtailing peak load. This can be achieved by having an understanding of how buildings can be better configured and implementing more innovative demand-side management strategies, such as addressing thermal storage and backup power issues.

"From this perspective the MINT(TM) DR solution is a time-critical integration solution for buildings, as the lighting load is by far the largest component of a building's total energy consumption," notes Khaund. "Besides regulating lighting load as per usage-requirement, the MINT(TM) DR is capable of incorporating day-light harvesting with seasonal control and monitoring."

Such a solution is made possible by the digital ballasts of the MINT(TM) DR, which are designed based on a logarithmic dimming curve. This technology can naturally modulate light with little or no visible difference to the human eye.

When not engaged in demand-response, MINT(TM) DR can automatically adjust the electric lighting based on the available daylight. Because of this operational efficiency and low power consumption of digital dimming technology, the MINT(TM) DR can offer energy savings of up to 70 percent.

"As a key player in the fast-growing addressable dimming market, with a high degree of market concentration at the top end, Lumisys' innovative solution has enabled the company to secure a niche for itself," observes Khaund. "The company's top line has grown over 50 percent over the last three years, and a 20-30 percent annual growth rate is expected over the next three years."

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has proven to be a leader in the industry and that, through its pioneering technology, sound business strategy, and research efforts, has been successful in moving the industry forward. Excellence in the field has extended beyond its technical advancements and encompasses a comprehensive view of market participants, resulting in an ongoing improvement in the industry over time. This Award recognizes the company for its broader, more comprehensive participation in the industry and for its contributions to the advancement of the market.

Frost & Sullivan's Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.

About Lumisys

Since 1985, Lumisys, formerly known as TRIATEK Lighting, has led the way with innovations in lighting control that are built for integration. Lumisys' solutions currently thrive in several thousand facilities around the world, fulfilling building owner demand for a superior alternative to stand-alone lighting control. Lumisys offers its partners and their clients a tremendously positive ownership experience though innovative products, quality manufacturing and value-added distribution model that enable them to experience sustainability and performance long after the initial installation.

Lumisys fosters an approach that eliminates integration uncertainty by aligning system accountability with a single, local expert. Simply stated: the Building Automation System (BAS) controls contractor provides the lighting control and the electrical contractor installs it. This revolutionary approach substantially lowers the cost of ownership by reducing the unnecessary infrastructure costs of stand-alone lighting control, eliminates integration uncertainty and maximizes energy savings throughout the building life cycle while providing the building owner a single point of accountability.

The Building Owner gets an efficiently integrated Energy Management System that is sustainable and maximizes the return on their investment.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, partners with clients to accelerate their growth. The company's TEAM Research, Growth Consulting and Growth Team Membership(TM) empower clients to create a growth-focused culture that generates, evaluates and implements effective growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan employs over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 30 offices on six continents. For more information about Frost & Sullivan's Growth Partnership Services, visit http://www.awards.frost.com.