(Credit: Magikos Kipos via Horti Daily)Signify, one of the world leaders in lighting for professionals and consumers and lighting for the Internet of Things (IoT) recently supplied its Philips GreenPower LED toplighting to Intelligent Green Crops S.A (IGC S.A.). Also known as the Magikos Kipos (Magic Garden), IGC S.A. is an innovative company that has recently built a hydroponic lettuce and herb greenhouse in Kastro Viotias, Greece. This is Greece's first installation of LED lighting in a greenhouse for indoor vegetable cultivation.
IGC S.A. is constantly looking for new sustainable production methods such as avoiding the use of chemicals and hormones and using only non-GMO seeds. The collaboration with Signify proved to be another step toward sustainable production, with the goal of exploring a new lighting solution capable of ensuring consistent and predictable seedling production year-round.
With the installation of Philips GreenPower LED toplighting, the greenhouse can now produce between 9 and 10 million units per year increasing production during the colder, cloudier months. Moving forward in such an innovative field as indoor cultivation allows Signify to contribute to one of the most pressing challenges of our millennium: increasing global food availability through sustainable and replicable production methods in different parts of the world, regardless of climate.
In order to assist the UN sustainability goals and the European Green Deal, indoor farming is one of the areas Signify is concentrating on the most. This initiative is a component of Signify's broader sustainability strategy, "Brighter Lives, Better World 2025," which aims to more than double the company's beneficial effects on society and the environment by the year 2025.
Businesses and municipalities are using LED lighting more and more frequently as a method to save money and contribute to energy conservation. According to Tina Halfpenny, executive director of DLC, a non-profit organization improving energy efficiency, lighting quality, and the human experience in the built environment, "Light pollution is disproportionately exacerbated in communities of color and a cause of population decline across a myriad of animal species, however, LED technology has delivered immense energy savings across the globe and more opportunity remains.
In the United States, numerous states have installed LED Streetlights to help reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions and their carbon footprint. The City of Memphis, Tennessee is currently working with Ameresco to reduce energy costs citywide by upgrading more than 77,000 streetlights to LEDs. Eleven months ago, The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and Ameresco completed an $18.9 million streetlight project in which more than 8,000 fixtures were replaced with energy-efficient LEDs.
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