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“We have designed a patented lighting controller that does power shaping on electricity that goes into ballasts,” said David Berg, Cavet’s founder, executive vice president, product management and engineering. “It’s a little smaller than a shoe box, depending on how big your feet are.”

The company blamed poor lighting sales on the anaemic construction industry in developed countries, and said its gross sales in lighting would grow in the low single digits. But production capacity is being severely underutilised due to low demand, mainly in western Europe. Margins in the company’s lighting division fell to some 4 per cent, well below the 10 per cent margin in the first quarter.Philips also said low consumer demand in western Europe had hit its consumer products revenues. It also noted some impact from the expected spin-off of its television division to Hong Kong-based TPV, which it announced in April. The company will report that the audio-visual and media section of its consumer products division has fallen into the red. An analyst said Philips officers had told him that the spin-off of the TV business had created customer and retailer uncertainty and led to falling TV sales, which also hurt knock-on sales of other audio-visual products.

In the meantime, there are preparations for a large, multi-industrial project to start at the end of the year which will be an important intermediary step: a hybrid carbon-copper wire in which the carbon is dispersed throughout the copper, making the copper lighter and stronger, while further reducing transmission losses.

Ultra-light, high performance electrical wiring, made from carbon instead of copper, has been developed in a usable form for the first time.