May 6 2009
The streets of Pombal, Portugal, are brighter - and more eco-friendly - thanks to a patent-pending optical street-lighting solution developed by Fraen Corporation in partnership with Philips Lumileds.
Fraen Corporation's new LED streetlight offers greener and more efficient street lighting on the streets of Portugal. (Photo: Business Wire)
Fraen and Philips collaborated to develop technology that would allow BlueSpan, a European company focused on sustainable lighting solutions, to harness the clean, efficient illumination of Philips' light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for the first LED streetlights in Portugal.
"We are excited and pleased that the new streetlights will not only reduce our energy consumption, but that we will also begin the process of removing solutions with mercury from use in our city," said Narciso Mota, Pombal City Mayor. The new streetlight is being considered for a broader implementation throughout the country.
The 3-plane optical solution designed by Fraen, shapes the light from LEDs into any required streetlight illumination pattern. Without this technology, non-directional LEDs are virtually useless for street-lighting applications.
In early 2009, BlueSpan selected Fraen's streetlight optical solution for use in the new lights for Pombal City. Fraen accelerated the industrialization of its world-premier technology to meet BlueSpan's needs. The complete system came together very quickly, and the lights were illuminated for the first time in April.
"Fraen is delighted to see one of our many streetlight optical solutions being adopted and to have partnered with Philips so early in the development process," said David Cohen, Business Unit Manager, Optical Manufacturing Group. "This early collaboration is our specialty and allows us to deliver superior innovative optical solutions so that customers like BlueSpan can bring products to market quickly and affordably."
Fraen will demonstrate its revolutionary optical solution at Lightfair International 2009 Booth #148 next week. The technology offers many advantages over other solutions in the marketplace, including axial rotational symmetry, high efficiency and the flexibility to meet many of the common road-type lighting specifications.