News

Led by The Climate Group, LightSavers is looking to undertake LED streetlight trials in London on the major arterial roads. These roads facilitate the flow of mixed commercial and private traffic into and through the city, and typically require mounting heights for lighting of 10m or 12m.

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A combination of lower cell costs, feed-in tariffs and innovative module designs is set to drive a huge expansion of building-integrated photovoltaics.

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In this project, we focus on the conception and study of novel architectures for wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) optical multi-modulation format radio-over-fibber (RoF) systems, which is a promising solution to implement broadband seamless wireless-wired access networks. One important feature of our proposed approach is versatile optical multi-modulation format radio-over-fibber systems with robust transmission, high spectral efficiency and high dynamic range properties, not achievable by conventional intensity modulated systems alone.

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The European Commission's "Innovation Union"announced on October 6, 2010 sets out a strategic approach to innovation. The Innovation Union aims to focus Europe's efforts – and co-operation with third countries - on challenges like climate change, energy and food security, health and an ageing population. It will use public sector intervention to stimulate the private sector and to remove bottlenecks which stop ideas reaching the market. These include lack of finance, fragmented research systems and markets, under-use of public procurement for innovation and slow standard setting.

To read the launching speech by Máire Geoghegan-Quinn click here

To read the full text of the communication click here

EuroPIC is a collaborative project which has brought together a consortium of experts including Europe’s key players, consisting of a mix of SMEs, industry and academic partners, in the fields of component manufacturing, PIC design and applications, photonic CAD, and packaging. It has received 3.75 million funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme to effect a fundamental change in the way applications based on photonic integrated circuits are designed and manufactured in Europe.

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Remarkable optical system that treats central vision blindness caused by end-stage macular degeneration recently received FDA approval.

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EU-funded researchers led by the University of Southampton in the UK have developed a new data transmission system that could significantly improve the transmission capacity and energy efficiency of the world's optical communication networks.

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Photonics contributes to a sustainable economy/speech by Dr. Berit Wessler, Member of the Stakeholder Board of Photonics21

“Light has a fundamental effect on life given the first photosynthetic organisms evolving about 3,500 million years ago laying the fundamentals of more complex life on earth. Sustainability and Photonics therefore have an eternal association” was the key introduction remark Dr. Berit Wessler, member of the Stakeholder Board of Photoncis21, gave on the ICT 2010 Conference in the section “Components and Systems for energy efficiency”.

Modern photonic technologies utilize the generation, the emission, transmission, modulation, sensing, amplification, detection and signal processing of light to enable eco-friendly and sustainable solutions for many applications and production processes.

Photonic technologies, she stated, have a major impact on sustainability and contribute to the solution of major economic, ecologic and societal challenges - whether one looks into the field of

-energy generation, where photovoltaic panels substitute fossil energy sources and thus reducing CO2

-energy consumption in the use phase – e.g. increased the energy efficiency with reduced electricity consumption using modern lighting solutions – or - meeting future communication requirements with reduced power consumption per bit by optical next generation networks

-enabling energy reductions in the manufacturing processes – e.g. with lasers producing light-weight structures in transportation meeting modern mobility needs by lower green house gas emissions per kilometer – or – control, monitor and optimize energy consumption and hazardous substances.

Photonic technologies are expected to contribute to massive energy savings from 30 up to 90 percent Wessler explained in her presentation giving examples from various areas. Increased sustainability due to the use of photonic is feasible – and affordable – she stated. What is needed, so her concluding remarks, are actions taken to accelerate those innovations by large scale demonstration projects, sustainable procurement and regulations and new business models, which support eco efficient products and technologies.

To view the presentation click here

Information & communication technology (ICT) equipment and services consume over 8% of electrical power in the EU and produce about 4% of its CO2 emissions. These figures could double by 2020. The European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) manages voluntary codes of conduct for ICT companies to reverse this trend. Today in Brussels at the "ICT 2010-Digitally Driven" event, 16 more ICT firms have agreed to reduce the electricity consumption of their broadband equipment and data centres. This should reduce their electricity consumption, in many cases by 50%. Although a voluntary measure, 36 of Europe's biggest ICT companies already apply the codes of conduct. The Digital Agenda for Europe adopted by the Commission in May 2010 (IP/10/581, MEMO/10/199, MEMO/10/200) wants to ensure that the ICT sector leads the way on reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

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