Fifth Light Technology comes out from the dark
It was more than a year ago when I first heard about an Oakville, Ont.-based company called Fifth Light Technology. FLT had developed a microprocessor-based dimmer for magnetic ballast fluorescent lighting fixtures, which on their own can’t be dimmed.
Fact is, even though electronic ballast-based fixtures are the future, the majority of lighting in office towers across Canada are likely still based on magnetic ballasts. By giving these older fixtures the capability of being dimmed, FLT was making it possible to connect these lights to energy-management systems — i.e. reduce electricity consumption by up to 65 per cent by automatically adjusting lighting levels for specific situations. At the same time, building managers could extend the life of these magnetic ballast lights before switching to more expensive electronic systems.
FLT received $3 million in funding toward a demonstration project from — surprise, surprise — Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) back in June 2004. The $9.2 million project involved Toronto Hydro and Great West Life Realty, but beyond that I couldn’t get any information out of FLT. Since then, the company has conducted itself largely in stealth mode.
This Thursday, however, it seems FLT will be having a coming out party. A large office building in Toronto’s downtown core — 33 Yonge St., to be precise — is having its magnetic-ballast lighting system completely updated with FLT’s technology. Vicky Sharpe, president of SDTC, and John McCallum, Canada’s minister of revenue and minister of natural resources, will both be on hand to showcase the project. They’ll be announcing, according to a press alert, a new technology that “promises to dramatically change the economic and environmental impact of commercial lighting.”
Anway, it’s good to know that something has actually come out of this project, and that we’ll soon be learning more about FLT, its technology and its ambitions. All that said, I wonder how long you can survive as a business by upgrading technology that’s already becoming obsolete? My guess is that FLT will have to merge with another “smart lighting” company at some point, such as Markham, Ont.-based Encelium Technologies, which does light-management systems focused on electronic ballastic fixtures, or be absorbed by a large consolidator like General Electric.
(UPDATE: I wrote a more in-depth article on this announcement for today’s Toronto Star.)
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
November 10th, 2005 at 10:49 am
Strange that FLT’s website has no mention of who is behind it & no financials, and as you’ve noted it’s “conducted itself largely in stealth mode”. And even more interesting is that other type-of- lighting fixtures are the future.
If $3,000,000 of taxpayers dollars has been given to this company isn’t it only fair that they provide us with an accounting of how that money has been spent?
Strange.
November 10th, 2005 at 2:20 pm
I also have a problem with the fact there’s no background information, given the company is benefitting from public funds. It would be nice to at least know who the executives are, as well as get a history of the company and some more technical information on its technology. I don’t expect any financials, however, as this is a start-up. I’ve run into this problem with other SDTC-funded projects, where the companies involved don’t want to talk about their technologies. If any money is handed out, there should be something written in the contract that says the companies involved have to disclose certain details of the project before they get the funds. Without such transparency, SDTC risks the perception that it’s a slush fund for companies that may have deeper relationships with the folks in government.
November 10th, 2005 at 5:09 pm
Here’s another website for FifthLight:
http://home.cogeco.ca/~dimandsave/contacts.htm
November 11th, 2005 at 3:57 pm
From the FLT specification on their website, it appears that the device needs to be installed into each fluorescent fixture, wired in front of the existing magnetic ballast. If you do this, you might as well replace the magnetic ballast! You would use an addressable electronic dimming ballast (with DALI protocol – an open standard). Can the proprietary FLT technology be cheaper than and existing industry-wide standard with competitive suppliers? I would not bet on it.
However, I cannot help feeling the politicos don’t know zilch (to use a polite term) about the technology or market they are fiddling in.
November 14th, 2005 at 1:45 pm
DALI protocol is a very robust/versatile protocol that can be used for ALL forms of lighting systems. There mere fact that it is an open protocol makes it much more appealing in my opinion. The above post is actually very insightful in many ways. It also raises a few questions for me:
Can anyone confirm that FifthLight actually uses EXISTING magnetic ballasts? Or does it replace the existing ballasts during installation? How about the existing tubes? On a grand scale, why replace upwards of 1 billion magnetic ballasts with electronic ones when we can simply make the existing magnetic ballasts more efficient? Assuming that FifthLight actually uses the existing ballasts, it does seem like a more environmentally sound solution, but maybe only in the short term�
Are magnetics harder to recycle or dispose of than electronics? Are they easier or harder to manufacture? What is the waste byproduct? Would it be wiser to simply replace all magnetics right now? Or slowly faze them out? Or not faze them out at all if they can be dimmed? Does it even matter? If we were segue to electronics in coming years, would we even have the facilities to even dispose of such a huge amount of magnetics? What would the impact be? Again, does it matter? These are all questions that no one seems concerned about when comparing both technologies.
I�m curious as how much typical FifthLight installation will cost. As for a purely electronic solution, I believe cost is really the only limiting factor. The technology is still very expensive and no one is ready to endure that kind of price tag just yet.
Very few companies provide a complete solution, too. The Encelium website leads me to believe that they only provide the controls required but don’t actually produce addressable electronic dimming ballasts. Is this true? Also, they don’t seem provide anything but a “package” for you to install, at which point you seem to be on your own. They basically hand you the hardware and the instructions and it�s up to you to figure it all out. Is this true? I�ve never actually heard of Encelium until now so forgive me if I got it all wrong.
Now, FifthLight on the other hand seems to offer a complete solution from start to end, according to press releases I’ve read. They leave little for you to worry about before, during and after. Until someone can offer such a complete solution at a reasonable price, I don�t see anyone adopting either technology too quickly.
November 29th, 2005 at 12:44 am
I find this very interesting that anyone would consider this technology. The saving of 65% makes no sense. What is the combined efficiency of having two circuit driving the lamps?The labor costs are the same as DALI system and as stated before not compatible. You will shortly see a much better system!
February 15th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
65% is possible. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. As for the combined efficiency? I’m not sure.
DALI is not all it claims to be in my eyes. There are better solutions out there and you’ll probably be seeing a glimpse of them in the oncoming year.