SunCentral Inc. was a manufacturer of active daylighting products based in

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. The ...

. The company was founded in 2010 to commercialize the “Core Sunlighting System” developed at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

. The "Core Sunlighting System" uses sunlight tracking and concentrating optics integrated within the curtain wall façade of multi-storey commercial buildings. The system delivers sunlight deep within each floor of the building via hybrid prism light guides. The light guides, developed by inventor Lorne Whitehead, a professor at the University of British Columbia and the founder of SunCentral, are mounted in modern lighting fixtures that provide both electric lighting and sunlight. When the sun shines, electric lighting is dimmed or turned off, resulting in energy savings and reduced HVAC load. SunCentral has collaborated with several education institutions, including the California Lighting Technology Center at

UC Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

. Technology demonstrations have been completed and tested at the

British Columbia Institute of Technology The British Columbia Institute of Technology (also referred to as BCIT), is a public polytechnic institute in Burnaby, British Columbia. The technical institute has five campuses located in the Metro Vancouver region, with its main campus in Burn ...

, and at the

Okanagan College Okanagan College is a public, post-secondary institution with over 120 certificates, diplomas, degrees and programs including apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship trades programs. Its largest campus is located in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canad ...

. An autonomous daylight tracking product, the SunBeamer, was commercially released by SunCentral in 2012. SunBeamers were installed at the “Imagining the Lowline Exhibit” in September, 2012, to deliver sunlight to the exhibit space. They wrapped up operations shortly after completing their first successful Chinese manufacturing run of their second model. Owing thousands of dollars in unpaid wages and leaving many other unpaid bills behind.

References

{{Reflist, refs= Converse, Douglas (May 2010
“Core Sunlighting: A Bright Idea”
Canadian Facility Management and Design. Retrieved February 28, 2013. Whitehead et al (September 2011
“Core Sunlighting Technology”
Construction Canada. Retrieved February 28, 2013. “Bringing Daylight Indoors”
UC Davis Publication. Retrieved February 28, 2013. Media Release (29 August 2011
“UBC unveils $61.8M sustainable makeover to BiologicalSciences Complex”
University of British Columbia. Retrieved February 28, 2013. Lak, Daniel (08 August 2012

Al Jazeera News Website. Retrieved February 28, 2013 Lowlinebr>Exhibit
/ref>

External links

Official site
Manufacturing companies based in Vancouver