ensto today | FROM THE CEO Come on baby, light my fire! When the cost of LEDs was reduced and performance Kaupo Kikkas 4 ENSTO TODAY 1/2016 enhanced, production volumes picked up, first moderately and then massively. This explosion gave birth to many new players in the lighting industry, and these new entrants did not play by the rules of the traditional market. Of course it also meant a wider choice, and with limited industrial experience of some producers, a high number of products of inferior quality entered the market. Quality that left something to be desired did hurt the reputation of the LEDs and slowed down the pace of change. Industry players who were technology freaks, in a positive way, managed to create new products which made use of the unique properties of LEDs, like directional light, and hence true LED luminaires came about. These luminaires have proper drivers and cooling, no reflectors, and hence are designed to exploit fully these new opportunities which are not available if you just replace a conventional light bulb by an LED light source. The true LED luminaires are unbeatable in their energy efficiency, their ability to bring out true colours, and their longevity. We can say that had the technological development of LEDs been linear, technology pessimists could have been right. However with an exponential development curve, in several aspects, LEDs have disrupted the market. Old systems have a bright future behind them. “Fiat lux” is today “Fiat LED”! Timo Luukkainen CEO and President, Ensto Group Very often artists are able to predict new trends years before they even exist. The Doors did this in the sixties, and the title of their song is still valid. Come on baby, light my diodes! When I joined Ensto, one of my objectives was to introduce LEDs and help Ensto become a leading supplier of LED luminaires and solutions before my retirement. Now, in the cruise ship market, in Finland, and to a great extent in Sweden, this has become a reality. My successor, Ari Virtanen, who will take over as CEO beginning in early April, will now lead the Ensto team to even wider and more significant coverage of new markets. The speed of technical evolution has during these years been that of a revolution, and looking at Organic LEDs one can be sure that there’s a lot happening all the time. At first, light emitting diodes were expensive, and as a technology, forecast to be used only in specific cases. The colour of LEDs was difficult to master, so they were not very appealing for residential use. Lower efficiency combined with high cost made many think that alternative technologies, multi metal light sources, for example, were unbeatable for energy efficiency.
EnstoToday 2016 No1 / ENG
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