Description of the Awards
To recognize outstanding off-grid lighting products that are available for purchase in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal or Tanzania, Lighting Africa has launched the Lighting Africa Product Awards Program. Winners in each product category received a plaque and all winning products are granted the rights to display the mention “Winner of the Lighting Africa Outstanding [category] Product Award 2010” on packaging and marketing materials. Additionally, a Lighting Africa sponsored advertising campaign will be rolled out in conjunction with the awards to publicize the winners and raise consumer awareness about off-grid lighting.
Lighting Africa is calling for inputs from the private sector to finalize a standard testing methodology for evaluating the performance of off-grid lighting products sold in African markets. The methodology is a tool that will help distributors (bulk-purchasing agents and importers,) government regulators and NGOs to quickly identify good-quality products or verify compliance with minimum performance levels.
The Lighting Africa Outstanding Products Awards 2010 is sponsored by Lighting Africa, a joint program of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (The "World Bank") and International Finance Corporation ("IFC").
The nomination period for the first round of awards was closed on October 2, 2009.
Contest Categories
Categories in which you may participate include:
- Ambient / room lights
- Task lights
- Torches / flashlights
Evaluation Criteria
- Performance ‐ This criterion evaluates light output and quality, lighting duration, stability, performance of charging and energy
storage subsystems, and durability.
- Design ‐ This criterion evaluates ease of use, efficiency, environmental impacts, special product features (for example mobile phone charging).
- Affordability ‐ This criterion evaluates startup investment cost, maintenance of the Products, and general affordability.
- Advertising ‐ This criterion evaluates the truthfulness, fairness, and non‐deceptiveness in advertising the Products.
Selection Process
The Products are judged through a four‐step process that includes:
- initial screening (October – December 2009) ‐ For the purposes of the first stage, up to five Products from each category are selected based on initial screening. Samples of the Products selected in this first stage are procured from neutral retail markets or unbiased channels for subsequent rounds of judging.
- laboratory testing (November, 2009 to March 2010) ‐ The second stage includes detailed lab testing. The laboratory testing used to assess the performance of the products were developed for Lighting Africa by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems. The tests include performance measurements such as total lumen output, daily hours of service provided, lumen maintenance, battery storage capacity, charging system performance (e.g., solar module power output), and a number of others. The test methods used in the process are available for download from http://www.lightingafrica.org/node/7536.
- field judging (January – February 2010) ‐ The third stage includes field judging by typical consumers of off‐grid lighting in Sub‐Saharan Africa.
- final selection (May 2010) ‐ In stage four, the laboratory and field judging results from the second and third stage are considered by an expert committee, appointed by Lighting Africa, who chose zero to three Winning Products from each category.
Results
The products that have passed the test specifications include:
• Barefoot Power - Firefly 12 LED
• Barefoot Power - PowaPack
• d.Light Design - Nova S200
• Greenlight Planet - Sun King
• Philips - Udaymini
• Solux - LED-50
• SunTransfer - SunTransfer 2
Five of these seven products were recently recognized in the Lighting Africa Outstanding Product Awards competition. The award winners, listed by category, were[1]:
• Task Lighting
o 1st Place: Greenlight Planet - Sun King
o 2nd Place: Barefoot Power - Firefly 12 LED
• Ambient / Room Lighting
o 1st Place: Barefoot Power - PowaPack
o 2nd Place: d.Light Design - Nova S200
• Top Performance
o 1st Place: Barefoot Power - PowaPack
o 2nd Place: Sun Transfer - Sun Transfer 2
• Best Value
o 1st Place: Barefoot Power - Firefly LED 12
o 2nd Place: Greenlight Planet - Sun King
REFERENCES
- ↑ 2010.WB.Develop
