It was just in early may that Yonge Street
reported on the launch of
Cavet Technologies' lighting control system LumiSmart ILC. Then, weeks later,
we reported that the company had already won an innovation award for the "Intelligent Lighting Controller" from the Canadian Advanced Technological Alliance Innovation Awards.
As the year comes to a close, the company has racked up nine more awards for the LumiSmart ILC, most recently the New Technology Award from the
2010 Ontario Regional Awards for New Technology presented by the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (CME) and the National Research Council-Industrial Research Assistance Program.
Albert Behr, Cavet's president, says the company is "thrilled" to accept the award, and the slew of awards they've previously racked up. He adds that just months after launching, the company is now shipping to more than 30 countries across the world. "This thing is being installed everywhere," he says. "We're very proudly Canadian, but for sales Canada is a small part of the mix."
Behr notes that the product is manufactured at Celestica in Toronto, and that production there is going full-tilt. "We just officially launched -- as it had units ready for sale -- in November, and we've already got a run-rate most companies would kill for after two or three years."
The technology, designed and manufactured in Toronto, allows people to control their lighting automatically in a way that saves energy and money. It takes advantage of "adaptive lighting" by using sensors to increase or decrease lighting levels based on whether people are in a room or not. The company claims it can produce a 30 per cent power reduction instantly without the installation of any new lights or fixtures. Behr says this is a huge competitive advantage in a field in which most companies require installation of big infrastructural retrofits to conserve energy. He expects the company to grow exponentially in the next 12 months. "2010 was about commercializing the product. 2011 is really about harvesting sales from around the world."
Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Albert Behr, President, Cavet Technologies