Parans natural lighting system

The Swedish Parens natural lighting system employs a new technology to bring sunlight into buildings using fiber optic cables.

Natural sunlight is the highest quality light available. The Parens system collects sunlight outdoors and brings it indoors through fibre optic cables. The system is the perfect solution to providing natural light to rooms and areas which for various reasons can't obtain natural lighting. What is more, a complete building utilising the Parens System would require no artificial lighting during the day drastically reducing the buildings energy consumption.

Parens has an excellent animation on their website which shows exactly how the systems works. A 1.0m x 1.0m solar collector is mounted on either the roof or facade of the building.
The sunlight is then concentrated into the fibre optic cables which run through the building to the lighting locations. The Parens luminaries are hybrid in design so that when the natural lighting level drops, the fittings switch to mains power and provide artificial lighting.

Most if the installations to date have been in Europe, however it won't be long before the system will be desirable throughout the world.