Frequently Asked Questions

Why use direct current ballasts

DC is produced by Solar Panels, Wind Turbines, Fuel Cell Battery storage systems, and Electric Vehicles. Converting DC to traditional Alternating Current is wasteful. Our DC Ballasts let you power flourescent lights with 'clean and green' DC. If your home, business, cabin, boat, or other energy efficient structure uses DC power, these DC lighting Ballasts are exactly what you need.

What does the National Electric Code have to say about direct current lighting?

In the 2005 National Electric Code, Section 210.6(D) was added to prevent people from getting electrocuted when changing high voltage light bulbs (like 480 Volt HID Bulbs). It outlawed the use of high voltage lamps in areas where people might change bulbs. Inadvertently, it also outlawed DC Fluorescent lighting, which runs at 380 Volts DC. Nextek Power Systems sent Mark C. Robinson and Dr. Robert Wills, PE to the Code Council where they argued for a change in the NEC to allow for DC Lighting Systems.
Read more about it here

Why isn't DC power more prevalent?

What do you think would have happened if, a hundred years ago, someone had invented a DC Power Transformer? Direct Current power in, electricity out -- any voltage, current, frequency, and phase.  Would we have a DC Grid? A system where high voltage DC would be transmitted over the grid we have today, inverting power to AC when required by the occasional motor or AC load?

Perhaps, but in any case, today we have an AC grid, with a zillion little rectifiers loitering at its edges. Yes a zillion. Every television, computer, cellphone, microwave, fluorescent lighting ballast, cordless phone. A zillion. And they're each sucking up a watt or two, often 24 hrs a day. Arthur Rosenfeld, head of the California Energy Commission, calls them our "Energy Vampires." 
Read more about Nextek Power's DC Power Gateway here

Why use fluorescent lighting?

Incandescent lights (traditional light bulbs) have a small strand of carbon which, when electricity flows through it, gets extremely hot, in fact, "white hot" and glows brightly enough to light our houses.  The fact that it gets. hot, though, means that a great deal of the electrical energy is converted to heat, rather than light. If all of the energy were converted to light, this would be extremely energy efficient. Of course, this is not possible.

Fluorescent lights work differently. A gas inside the tube is subjected to extremely high frequency electricity and glows. Because it doesn't get very hot, it is 75% more efficient than incandescent light bulbs.
Learn more about how fluorescent lighting works and how it can benefit your business here