Parans: fiber-optic solar lighting
January 18, 2008
Saw a blurb in dwell magazine about Parans lighting. It uses a solar collector on the outside of the building which conveys the sunlight through fiber-optic cables to various fixtures. Some of the fixtures also include fluorescents to provide lighting when there’s no sun, and vary according to the amount of natural light available.
I like the idea of using natural light, both for health reasons and to reduce energy costs. I’ve seen daylight fixtures that use mirrors such as Solatube before, but the cabling thing looks interesting and more flexible.
Anyone have experience with daylight fixtures of any sort?
January 21, 2008 at 8:11 am
Do you know what the cost per room is? J said he thought another project manager at his company had used it (either that, or LED) in a hospital project. He didn’t know what the cost was for the fiber optics, vs. standard wiring, so maybe it’s a relatively new thing?
Thanks for doing this blog!
January 21, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Not a clue. I found the only US distributor at http://www.huvco.com/ but I can’t find any prices. The other similar thing I found (fiber-optic “wiring”) was at http://www.sunlight-direct.com but it was only for commercial applications.