The Hybrid Solar Lighting technology, developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has gone through quite an evolution in recent years. Hybrid Solar Lighting (HSL) refers to the concept of piping natural sunlight indoors via fiber optics and distributing this light to multiple lighting fixtures for the purpose of supplementing the artificial light with natural sunlight. This offers the potential to improve the ambience of any room while saving money.

ORNL is a national resource for basic scientific research that seeks to commercialize technologies when possible. ORNL approached Protomet Corporation with the goal of using Protomet’s design for manufacturing expertise to lower the cost of the HSL technology in a step towards improving the commercial viability of this technology. Figure 1 shows an early version of the unit with the mirror supported by a large weldment yoke. The cost to manufacture this unit was about $16,000. ORNL contracted Protomet to conduct a zero based design analysis with everything on the table to reduce cost. Figure 2 depicts the Phase 1 design where the weldment yoke was replaced with a clam shell design as well as other design changes to lower the cost from $16,000 to $8,250.

ORNL eventually transferred the technology to a startup company called Sunlight Direct. Sunlight Direct then contracted Protomet to conduct a Phase 2 design with the focus to introduce castings to lower the cost of the larger aluminum components. As shown in Figure 3, this allowed the industrial design team to introduce aesthetic elements while lowering the final build cost to approximately $5000.

The design was featured in Popular Science and on the Discovery Channel. If you want to find out more about this technology and how Sunlight Direct continues to lead the field in solar applications, please check out
www.sunlight-direct.com.