These innovative pipes can easily bring natural light indoors, reduce energy costs

Oct 29, 2012 20:51 GMT  ·  By

Quite a while ago, several British and South Korean researchers got together and decided to look into the possibility of harvesting sunlight and making it light up windowless spaces with the help of pipes.

The working principles behind their ideas are quite easy to understand and very straightforward: as long as pipes can successfully be used to make water and the like get from one place to another, it may very well be that they can also be used to channel natural light.

Oil Price lets us in on the science talk revolving these so-called “light pipes.” Thus, it seems that a mirror is in charge of following the sun and bouncing off its rays onto a parabolic dish.

Later on, this parabolic dish groups the sun rays together and sends them down a small hole that opens up into the pipe.

Once it hits the inside of the pipe, the natural light can travel along it over considerable distances, all thanks to several relay lenses which help hold it together and keep it from going astray.

Should various company headquarters and households agree to implement this innovative technology when it comes to lighting up either their windowless rooms and offices, or their basements, it is believed that they could lower their energy bills by as much as 20-25%, at the same time having sufficient light to be able to get around.

Spokespersons for Sunportal, the company in charge of designing and manufacturing these light pipes, claim that they can provide somewhere between 80-500 lux of light.

Seeing how one lux is basically the equivalent of whatever light intensity is available during early twilight, it looks like these innovative pipes are more than capable of meeting one's lighting demands while keeping a close eye on environmental protection and electricity bills.

Commenting on these light pipes and the technology behind them, researcher Dong Gyu-Oh described them as follows: “a major asset for energy saving as well as for our environmental policy.”