Materials + Methods

PHIL HAGEN

>>> Solatube International, Vista, California

You know it's a challenge for a company to describe the prowess of its product when "miracle" ceases to be a strong-enough word. Such is the case with Solatube International, the leading innovator of tubular daylighting devices since…well, since it first innovated them.

Back then, in the mid-1980s, an Australian inventor called his sunlight-capturing device the "Tubular Skylight." Once refined by the Solatube company, it was renamed the "Light Catcher," a brand that evidently worked just fine — in its first year on the Australian market, 1991, sales topped those of the traditional skylight. Once established in America and further improved, the "Miracle Skylight" became a mid-'90s phenomenon that caught the attention of everybody from The Wall Street Journal to Home & Garden Television.

With the new millennium came a couple of extra pushes for the Vista, California–based company: competition and the green movement. Here's where the innovation seemed to really accelerate, to the point in 2007 when Solatube declared "a completely redesigned daylighting system," that it had moved beyond even being a miracle skylight.

It could be just the nature of the tubular daylighting devices industry that brands simply don't sit still, with companies continually jockeying for position. But what hits home about the industry's progress — not to mention schools, offices and stores these days — is that the daylighting game is on, and Solatube is still setting the pace.

A sectional view of a Solatube product.

"We're the innovators, and we're driving the market to a higher level," said Solatube's director of marketing, Cynthia Sener, while surrounded by several of her dozen or so daylighting competitors during May's LightFair International trade show in Las Vegas. The Solatube booth was packed with inquiring buyers, and she pointed to them as a visual aid in stating Solatube's market position: "We're the brand of recognition. Usually the only one these people know is us."

She also has focus groups as proof, plus a list of 40 countries where Solatube products are sold and a portfolio full of LEED projects in which Solatubes were used (from the nearby Community College of Southern Nevada Telecommunications Building to REI's new store in Boulder, Colorado). And the green community typically backs Solatube, whether on the Web (GetWithGreen.com recently picked Solatube out of the field for an installation experiment) or in person: "They're a real pioneer," said Steve Rypka, LEED AP, a green-living consultant who has three Solatubes in his Las Vegas home, "and I like their product."

Nonetheless, Sener quickly offered a counterpoint to her own argument: "But we don't want to be the only player — that's not good for the market."

The Solatube booth was a virtual showcase of why, with displays doubling as an education in Solatube's progress, such as the Spectralight Infinity tube coating (2002), the micro-fine layers of acrylic that boost reflectivity to a still-unmatched 99.7 percent; the Daylight Dimmer (2003), whose patented butterfly baffle permits human control of the light; the 0-90 Degree Extension Tube Adaptor (2006), allowing flexibility in installation and application; and the Raybender 3000 (2007), a series of Fresnel lenses inside the dome that collect low-angle sunlight.

This year, on the heels of officially outmoding his miracle system, Solatube CEO David Rillie announced, "It's time to redefine daylighting." And so the main attraction at the Vegas booth was the Solatube 750 DS, which hit the market in late summer. "It's our most robust unit yet," Sener said. "It's almost like an electric lighting system."

Solatube products have moved from residential applications to commercial, institutional and educational settings, boosting daylighting and reducing energy useage.

The name comes from its effective daylight-capture surface: The 21-inch dome funnels enough sunlight down to the diffuser to shed up to 750 square inches of daylighting — twice as much as a clear dome of that diameter. The advanced design maximizes "daylight harvesting" periods in terms of days and seasons, and all components work together to keep the solar heat gain coefficient (estimated to be .20) within Energy Star requirements (less than .40).

Until the 21st century, Solatube focused solely on the residential market, with the simple goal of bringing sunlight to dark places (closets, bathrooms, laundry rooms) in a more thermally efficient way than skylights. Nowadays, with conserving energy a higher priority, Solatubes are hot commodities because they can pay for themselves over time (a basic unit is $500 installed; a 750 starts at $650, uninstalled).

For example, at the new Stater Bros. grocery store in Chino Hills, California, 164 units (the 21-C, now known as the 330 DS) completely day-light 43,235 square feet of sales area, plus the stockroom. This has had two effects: It's halved the store's lighting-energy costs and upped the caliber of its customers — because under the new daylighting, the shopping environment appears to be more upscale. Sener sees the indoor impact every day. Her office at Solatube — despite the fact that it's on the first floor of a two-story building — is completely day-lit. "It improves the mood," she said. "It's sort of an energy boost."

Such benefits also score points with LEED, she said, and while residential sales still dominate, this has helped shift the momentum at Solatube to the commercial sector in the past five years. Thus the drive to produce a unit like the 750.

With tube technology redefined for the moment, expect Solatube's next wave of innovation to focus on indoor aesthetics and functionality. The company already has designer options for trim styles, diffuser lenses, temperature-color effects and features such as vents and electric lighting. But Sener hints that much more will come out of the R&D lab. All she'll say is they will "redefine how to harness and best use daylight."

But after more than 15 years, that would be nothing new.

2210 Oak Ridge Way, Vista, CA 92081; (888) 765-2882 or www.solatube.com.