By Jennifer Kho

How many sailors does it take to change a light bulb? None, once you get rid of those pesky bulbs. Fiberstars will start installing a system that hooks LED lights to fiber optic pipes on U.S. Navy ships at the end of this month, in a test that could turn turning the once-exotic combination into a regular part of sea-going life.

The light-emitting diodes (LEDs) use about half the energy of the fluorescent bulbs currently stowed onboard, and—much more importantly for the Navy—last up to 20 times as long, according to CEO John Davenport. Also, they come with special fiber-optic cables, so bulbs can be installed in easy-to-reach locations, with light from one bulb piped to up to eight different places on the ship without losing any brightness along the way, he said.

If these sea tests go well, they could open up a new market for fiber-optic lighting. That’s because the company has a contract that would make the lights standard in every Navy ship, if they pass the tests, Mr. Davenport said. From there, Fiberstars could expand into planes and other transportation uses, where easy maintenance is held at a premium. But first the lights will have to prove they are good sailors.

It turns out that lights are a major problem on a Navy ship. It takes as many as 18,000 fluorescent bulbs to keep an aircraft carrier lit, he said. On an average deployment, every light on a ship goes out, said Doug Kirkpatrick, a program manager at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). “That means an awful lot of spares or areas that are allowed to go dark,” he said.

Aside from the difficulty of storing so many spares, there’s the hassle of keeping track of new and used bulbs, because old ones can’t be thrown overboard, Mr. Kirkpatrick said. And if a ship stays out longer than expected, it’s nigh on impossible to get new bulbs once the ship has sailed.

Then there’s the sheer manpower. Sailors have plenty to do without worrying about the lighting, and replacing a bulb at sea is trickier than you’d think. Just imagine trying to set up a ladder while plowing through the sea. Then imagine trying to climb it while carrying a pack of fluorescent tubes.

With its technology, Fiberstars hopes Navy sailors will never have to change lights during a mission again. The company expects its lights to more than 10 years.

Searching for a Better Light

DARPA’s search for a better bulb began in 2002, when the agency solicited bids for reduced-maintenance energy-efficient lighting.

After sorting through the bids, DARPA chose Fiberstars to work on the problem with several other companies—including SAIC, Optical Research Associates, Philips Lumileds Lighting, SRI International, and APL Engineered Materials—and eventually awarded Fiberstars $10.7 million for its part in the research. (The company also received another $3.7 million in grants from other government agencies.)

The program, called High Efficiency Distributed Lighting (HEDLight), developed a number of different lights to replace all of those aboard a Navy ship. Because LEDs are more color-precise, the group even came up with lights color-controlled to avoid hurting eyes behind night-vision goggles.

For about a year and a half, Fiberstars has been testing the lights at a few pilot sites on land, one of which is Mr. Kirkpatrick’s office. “It was not lost on the officers that came to talk that the lights we were sitting under were the same lights we were talking about,” he said. “As we came closer to the end of the program, it became obvious that the goal we had set out, to reduce energy costs and maintenance on ships, was very real.”

Then DARPA awarded Fiberstars another $2.1 million to install the project on actual Navy ships. The first of the ships will be outfitted with the new lights at the end of January, with two others scheduled for March and May. Tests will last at least nine months, Mr. Kirkpatrick said.

Virgin Voyage

While many of its products are landlubbers, Fiberstars is not new to water. It first started by selling fiber-optic lighting for pools and spas more than a decade ago before moving into buildings with traditional fiber-optic lighting for things like signs and steps.

Then, in 2004, after two years of development with DARPA, Fiberstars launched its “breakthrough” technology, its Efficient Fiber Optics (EFO) product line that the company says uses up to 80 percent less energy than traditional incandescent and halogen lights, and up to 60 percent less energy than regular LED lights.

The lights can be color-controlled to cast hues favorable for showing off products, and produces no heat from the bulb, making it ideal for refrigerators and freezers, Mr. Davenport said.

At a price of $1,000 to $1,500 for an octopus-like unit that replaces eight bulbs, the technology is unlikely to reach regular offices or homes any time soon, Mr. Kirkpatrick said.

But the maintenance- and energy-cost savings apparently make EFOs worthwhile for customer like Whole Foods, Albertsons, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Nordstroms, Marriott, and Disney theme parks, among others.

Mr. Kirkpatrick said the technology has great potential in situations where the cost of maintenance is high, such as on ships, on highways, and in parking lots. Also, Fiberstars could see a market in clean rooms and industrial spaces that must shut down when lights are changed, he said.

Tomorrow, the World

If it’s successful at making its lights standard on hundreds of Navy ships, Fiberstar hopes to reach for the air via U.S. Air Force planes. It also hopes to enter the solar market.

Most solar-power systems today use rooftops full of solar panels made of costly silicon cells. In a worldwide silicon shortage, a number of companies are developing technologies that use mirrors or lenses to concentrate sunlight onto tiny solar cells, potentially slashing costs (see Concentrating the Sun, Boeing Claims Solar Record, Cheaper Solar Comes Closer).

But one challenge has been the need to track the sun as it moves across the sky. Fiberstars hopes to take a different approach. Instead of moving the solar concentrators to capture the sun, the company wants to use fiber-optic cables to move the sunlight to the cells.

Fiberstars CTO Roger Buelow says the company has been selected to join a $50-million DARPA project, led by scientists from the University of Delaware, to create a solar panel with 50 percent efficiency. That goal is dramatically higher than an industry average of about 20 percent efficiency today.

Mr. Kirkpatrick confirmed the solar project, but said that it is being “rejiggered” and that he is legally prohibited from commenting on the project at this time.

The solar market would be a complete change from Fiberstars’ current business, but Mr. Davenport said the new EFO technology, along with its new potential markets, has turned the company into a startup again.

“This is a new thrust for us,” Mr. Davenport said. “It’s exciting to have something to start up.”