Seacoast NRG

Former (and perhaps continuing) nuclear bomb builder, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) recently won a technology transfer award for its development of hybrid solar lighting (HSL) technology.  HSL uses an outdoor-mounted solar collector dish to capture light and funnel it into a bundle of glass fibers, which “pipe” the light to its desired location.  The dish is motorized and controlled to follow the sun’s path to maximize the amount of captured light.  A single system can provide sufficient lighting for approximately 1,000 square feet of living space, and each system is estimated to save approximately 6,000 to 8,000 kilowatt hours of electrical energy per year.  No longer solely limited to laboratory experiments, HSL is being pilot tested at several universities and commercial sites around the country.  HSL systems are being pilot tested and marketed by Sunlight Direct, through an exclusive agreement with ORNL.