Patent ID: 8633653

Claim:
A lighting system, comprising: a plurality of fixtures, wherein each fixture includes a plurality of fluorescent lamps; a plurality of dimming ballasts wherein one of the plurality of dimming ballasts is operatively coupled to a respective one of the plurality of fixtures, each dimming ballast receives power from an outside source that is delivered to the fluorescent lamps within each corresponding fixture, wherein the dimming ballast includes: a DC power source operative to provide DC electrical power; a DC-AC converter coupled to receive the DC electrical power from the DC power source and operative to provide an AC output to drive a plurality of lamps; a controller operatively coupled with the DC-AC converter to control power applied to the lamps, the controller being operative at least partially according to a dimming level setpoint to selectively dim at most one of the lamps while controlling all the remaining lamps to be substantially at 0% or 100% power; and a control module that communicates with each dimming ballast, the control module receives a lighting level from an outside source, determines the most power efficient lighting solution and outputs a control signal to each dimming ballast related to the light output level of each lamp within each fixture.