A company in Nebraska called Axis Technologies is introducing a new, less expensive type of florescent lighting ballast that turns itself itself down gradually with an increase in sunlight.

The ballast is the latest entry into a growing segment of lighting technology known as "daylight harvesting."

Ballasts are the devices that start and regulate fluorescent lamps. The Axis ballast automatically allows for the highest overall reduction of electricity, the company says, and highest daytime peak period electricity reduction short of turning lights off.

The Axis Technologies allows significant and sustained lighting energy reduction without compromising lighting quality and can be integrated into new and existing fluorescent lighting without special requirements, the company claims.

The Axis ballast is best used in building areas with daylight contribution from windows or skylights. When daylight increases room light, the ballast controls automatically reduce the electric light in response. The response is instantaneous, and does not distract room occupants, the company says.

The electric light is reduced only when the room light is increased from daylight, so the room never grows darker. The instant response immediately adjusts to a cloud passing over, further avoiding distraction, the company claims.

The Axis Technologies ballast is designed for the commodity general lighting market, far and away the largest segment of the lighting industry. Other daylight harvesting systems are expensive and difficult to install and operate, and cannot be effectively sold into the general lighting market, Axis says.

Competitors such as Venture Lighting, Lighting Control and Design, DayLight Technology and others sell primarily into industrial applications.

Fluorescent lighting dominates the general lighting market. The combination of high efficiency, low cost, wide variety of product, and ready accessibility will keep fluorescent lighting the leader for the foreseeable future. There are in excess of one billion fluorescent ballasts in the United States alone, with approximately ninety to one hundred twenty million new ballasts produced annually.

Of this total, approximately 35%, or at least thirty million ballasts, are near external light sources and thus qualify for daylight harvesting.