Welcome to the second blog in our Partnerships for Innovation series, where we are exploring the rise of next-generation electrical distribution. Read the first blog in the series here.
Buildings evolve through practical decisions that gradually reshape the entire electrical architecture. So, where does next-generation electrical distribution begin? The answer is overhead. Lighting is the first practical proof that New Electrical Distribution works.
While much of the conversation about direct current (DC) centers on electric vehicles (EVs), battery storage, or renewable energy, one of the most mature DC-native technologies has quietly evolved for years. The foundation is firmly in place.
LED lighting provides one of the clearest answers. While LED penetration in commercial spaces is already surpassing 50% and is on track to reach 84% by 2035, scaling LED lighting requires power architecture, controls, data integration, and interoperability to work together. My first blog explained why the energy transition challenges assumptions behind traditional electrical distribution. In this post, I spoke with Norbert Linder, Director of Global Technology at Tridonic, to learn how they’re applying these ideas today.
Elan Meng: Let’s start with the obvious question: why lighting? With all the DC-native technologies available today, why do you think lighting is leading the DC transition?
Norbert Linder: Because it’s already here. Traditional alternating current (AC) distribution made sense when motors, heating systems, and conventional lighting dominated our buildings. That’s no longer the reality. Today’s facilities are very different and more complex, with solar panels, batteries, EVs, and LEDs all running natively on DC.
If the building electricity is still distributed as AC but the devices run on DC, something has to convert in between. With LED lighting, for example, each fixture performs an AC-to-DC conversion, duplicated hundreds or even thousands of times across the building.
Lighting is a surprisingly overlooked opportunity, and it’s not just about the lighting fixture but about architecture. Roughly 17% of all electricity consumed in today’s commercial buildings is from lighting alone. As one of the largest electrical loads on a property, lighting is also one of the easiest systems to modernize. When you identify a large load, it becomes an obvious and practical starting point.
Elan: What changed when you moved to a DC-native lighting architecture?
Norbert: When we transitioned, we eliminated much of this duplication, simplified the electrical pathways, and improved our efficiency more than we expected. For us, this was evident in:
- Fewer components meant fewer potential failure points
- Smaller, simpler drivers created more design flexibility than we had before
- Reduced heat generation helped support system life.
- Fewer electrical conversions meant overall better system efficiency
Elan: When you mentioned “DC-Native,” what did that actually mean for you in practice? Many might picture a single retrofit project.
Nobert: It is not just one thing. For us, this meant looking at how power, control, and information move through our buildings simultaneously, rather than as separate entities.
On the power side, we deployed DC-capable drivers that can operate across a range of architectures, centralized DC distribution, hybrid AC/DC systems, or localized microgrids. Now, instead of repeated AC/DC conversions at every luminaire, we distribute power more directly, simplifying our building’s overall electrical pathway.
For control, lighting became part of the broader intelligent building system. Our luminaires now support occupancy sensing, daylight harvesting, dimming, energy monitoring, and diagnostics via open standards such as DALI-2. Our lighting now responds to how spaces are actually used, rather than simply switching on and off.
On the data side, this was the biggest shift for us, as light went from an isolated endpoint to an active source of operational insight. Our energy information, maintenance data, and device health all feed into our building management systems.
Elan: With this new convergence of power, control, and data, a central idea behind New Electrical Distribution, what kind of benefits or outcomes have you seen?
Norbert: Quite a few, actually. We’ve already seen efficiency gains of up to 30% when coupled with automated lighting controls, with DC improvements driving efficiency beyond 95% at the LED driver level. Beyond the luminaire system level, we’ve consistently observed:
- Reduced electrical losses through fewer AC/DC conversion stages
- Simpler infrastructure with fewer components and less cabling
- Greater operational visibility through connected lighting systems
- Improved resilience through fewer potential failure points
- Longer service life through data-driven predictive maintenance
- Better alignment with renewable generation, battery storage, and future DC-native technologies
Lighting is no longer just a load we manage; it’s part of our building’s electrical and digital backbone.
Elan: How have partnerships played a role in your New Electrical Distribution journey?
Norbert: We know next-generation electrical distribution is more than a DC-ready power architecture; it also needs the right technologies to connect that architecture to the actual building loads.
For lighting, that meant intelligent drivers, digital controls, open communication standards, and deep application expertise, something on our own we didn’t have in-house.
Schneider Electric brought the broader electrical architecture: power distribution, infrastructure, protection, and system integration. Tridonic provided decades of expertise in lighting electronics, DC-capable drivers, controls, and connected lighting systems.
Together, their teams helped bridge the capabilities gap between our electrical distribution infrastructure and the lighting systems that our building owners, designers, and contractors deploy every day.
Elan: Why did this partnership matter so much? Couldn’t one vendor have deployed this?
Norbert: No, because DC buildings are not built from isolated components. Our lighting system had to connect safely and efficiently to the power architecture, communicate with other building systems, support open standards, and be practical for designers, contractors, and system integrators to install and operate.
It’s through this partnership that we were able to transform an architectural concept into a practical solution for us and for future customers.
Elan: What’s the takeaway for design firms, specifiers, contractors, and developers considering this?
Norbert: Start with the lighting; it’s mature, digital, and DC-ready. The same architectural principles we applied to lighting are already impacting the broader landscape of battery storage, renewable integration, and EV charging; they set the foundation for future intelligent buildings.
I couldn’t agree more, Norbert. We’re excited to keep watching how these technologies drive transformations. Next-generation electrical distribution represents a fundamentally new way of thinking about how today’s buildings generate, distribute, and use electricity.
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