Lumi Group Enlightens Our Streets

Having nearly three months of very few daylight hours in winter, it is no surprise that a Finnish company looks at ways to make our dark days more bright. The Lumi Group Oy from Turku has spotted a profitable niche and developed an excellent product, and is now set to profit handsomely from the changes in EU legislation which make our old street lightning outdated and in need of more energy efficient street lights.

The Lumi Group is a spinoff from Oversol Oy and was established in the beginning of 2010, and currently employees three people. They started out as a product development project with funding from Tekes two and half years ago, and launched their finished product, the Lumi R street light, last February at the Jyväskylä Light Fair. Now it’s about marketing their product and getting it installed – the first municipalities across Finland have already bought into the technology and are enjoying energy savings of up to 85% in comparison to the normal mercury street lights.

If that alone is not a sales argument for some communities, then maybe the life time of 50.000 hours – that are over five years of 24/7 lightning! – and saving in maintenance costs are tipping them over. Add in a better quality of light, which lights up the streets evenly, and municipalities and communities should be lining up in order to make those dark winter days safer and more enjoyable. Another plus-point is that the lamps are manufactured in Finland, and that they fulfill the requirements of street lights of today and the future.

The young company has a positive outlook on the future, and estimates that they will sell thousands of their street lamps in 2010 and expect rapid growth in the years after. Their confidence is backed up by a EU regulation which requires mercury lamps to be phased out by 2015, and given that in Finland alone 800.000 street lights are installed, one does understand their enthusiastic point of view.

But not resting on one great product, Lumi Group Oy is developing further street and road light solutions, for which more funding is sought – feel free to contact them if this seems a good venture to you, I am certain the payoff will be excellent. It is great to see this innovation take place in Finland, and talk with companies which are so positive about their future. While there are competitors out there, the Lumi R street lamp is for the time being ahead of them and is sure to win customers confidence and fulfill their demands. LED lights are already widely used and known in other areas, so this is just a logical and consequent development, and I am looking forward to walk through streets lightened up by Lumi street lights.