An early stage business idea focused on LEDs as an alternative light source for solar simulators has been declared overall winner of the inaugural UCD CleanWeb Sprint Award.

The UCD CleanWeb Sprint is a new one-day initiative designed and delivered by the UCD Earth Institute in collaboration with NovaUCD.

It aims to encourage the development of commercial outputs arising from UCD CleanWeb research by engaging with researchers at an earlier stage in the commercialisation process.

Solar simulators are light sources that simulate natural light and are used for photovoltaic testing and for the provision of indoor lighting. The bulbs currently used as light sources tend to have relatively short life spans, are expensive to purchase and have high maintenance requirements.

UCD PhD engineering student Laura Tobin is carrying out research in collaboration with Prof Ravindranathan Thampi, UCD School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering led light supplier, under the supervision of Prof John T Sheridan, UCD School of Electrical, Electronic and Communications Engineering, on high-powered LEDs as an improved alternative light source for solar simulators.

Unlike the currently used light bulbs, LEDs exhibit very high energy efficiencies, are considerably cheaper to buy, have longer life spans and have lower maintenance requirements.

The results of Tobin’s research demonstrate that 13W LED Panel Light can be easily varied on a real-time basis to allow tailored artificial sunlight to be used for both photovoltaic testing and indoor lighting. Using a sensor to detect the level of light in a room or location, the technology can then vary the light intensity and spectral distribution accordingly.

CleanWeb combines clean technology research with IT, web and social networking technologies to optimise the usage of resources such as food, water and energy. CleanWeb technologies can enable, access, and accelerate the mass-market adoption of clean technologies.

The UCD CleanWeb Sprint, which took place in the UCD O’Brien Centre for Science, involved a total of four early stage CleanWeb business ideas being developed by UCD researchers and scientists.

“I would like to congratulate Laura on winning the inaugural UCD CleanWeb Sprint Award for her research project on LED lights, which have extensive commercial potential as solar simulators,” said Brendan Cremen, UCD director of enterprise and commercialisation.

“Our team at NovaUCD was delighted to work in partnership with the UCD Earth Institute in the design and delivery of the inaugural Sprint at UCD, which is focused on testing new business ideas in an exciting and fun environment.

“One of the objectives of Sprint is to engage with UCD researchers at an earlier stage in the commercialisation process and to use internal and external experts to assist them in understanding and defining more clearly the commercial potential of the outputs emerging from their research activities.

“We look forward to running another UCD CleanWeb Sprint 7W LED Panel Light with the UCD Earth Institute in the future, and working with other UCD institutes and centres to roll out a similar initiative in other UCD research areas.”