The USCG has been testing versions of the 700 Series since the original design was built in 1999 under USCG contract and their approval lends third party validation from a sophisticated and well respected marine authority.

It represents one of the first approvals of LED-based marine lights by the USCG. All area and district commanders are now officially permitted to use Carmanah's 700 Series marine lights on discrepancy buoys, ATON stations, small lighted buoys and other platforms at their discretion. During 2002-2003, in an effort to reduce service costs, the USCG is performing a rigorous economic analysis of the total ownership cost of its traditional incandescent signals versus a potentially large scale conversion to newer LED-based lighting technologies.

The 700 Series are entirely self contained and feature the solar powered LED lighting technology. They are designed to operate reliably anywhere in the world with no maintenance for up to five years. In a comparison of marine lights by the Departement Signalisation Maritime et Fluviale (France), Carmanah's 700 series units proved to offer the lowest cost of acquisition, installation and operation for marine lights with visibilities up to 3.5 nautical miles.

Details of these lights can be found on the website of Carmanah's British distributor, Hydrosphere UK Ltd, at www.hydrosphere.co.uk