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LED Reccessed Downlights Could be Biggest Lighting Energy Saver, DOE Says |
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NSF Establishes New Engineering Research Center for Smart Lighting
LIGHTimes Staff
October 7, 2008...A new research center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute devoted to “Smart Lighting” has been established with funding from a five-year, $18.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The NSF-funded Smart Lighting Center hopes to replace the common light bulb with next-generation lighting devices such as LED luminaires that are smarter and greener. Other funding and support for the center comes from industry, New York state, and partnerships with Boston University and the University of New Mexico. Other partnering institutions include: Howard University in Washington; Morgan State University in Baltimore; and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind. Additionally, Chonbuk National University in Korea; National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan; Taiwan National University; and Vilnius University in Lithuania.
The project is expected to receive up to $50 million in funding over the next 10 years. The bulk of this funding will come from the NSF. Additional support will come from New York state, Rensselaer, and 18 industrial partners. NSF funding reportedly began in September with $3.25 million for the center’s first year. NSF funding for the center is forecast to increase over the next several years. New York has committed $700,000 to the center’s first year, and first-year funding from industrial partners is expected to reach nearly $1 million. Also, Rensselaer is committing more than $500,000 to aid the center’s launch.
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Lighting Science Group Announces Developments in Dispute with Philips Electronics
LIGHTimes Staff
October 7, 2008...Lighting Science Group announced during its annual shareholder’s meeting that its on-going dispute with Philips Solid State Lighting Solutions, Inc., has had further developments. LSG’s dispute with Philips Solid State Lighting Solutions was also with Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. and Philips Electronics North America Corporation (collectively "Philips"). On September 4, 2008, the court responded to LSG's motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent Philips further unfair trade practices. According to LSG, the court issued a tentative ruling that indicated that LSG is likely to prevail on the merits of its case. The ruling stated that "the evidence shows that defendants [Philips] likely obtained confidential information during its relationship with plaintiffs [LSG]..."
After hearing both sides of the argument, the court affirmed its tentative ruling and instructed both sides to submit a proposed order outlining the terms of the injunction provided to LSG by the court. LSG and Philips have submitted the proposed orders to the court.
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Philips Demonstrates Some Possibilities of Future of Home Lighting at Museum of Modern Art Exhibition
SSLDesign News Staff
October 3, 2008...Solid state lighting technology from Philips’ LED luminaires were showcased as part of Cellophane House, on view at The Museum of Modern Art's Home Delivery, Fabricating the Modern Dwelling exhibit in New York. Cellophane House is a five-story, completely transparent and sustainable house illuminated entirely with LED luminaires as a provacative example for the future residential lighting.
Home Delivery is a two-part exhibition on the historical and contemporary significance of factory-produced architecture. It includes five full-scale houses, one of which is Cellophane House, in the outdoor space west of the Museum. Cellophane House is designed by KieranTimberlake Associates and features a translucent architectural envelope. Photovoltaic panels collect solar energy. The design demonstrates the use of embedded light as an element of architecture itself.
The eW Cove Powercore luminaires from Philips transformed the translucent floors into create luminous planes. eW Cove Powercore luminaires were embedded in the stair treads to make the staircase glow.
eW MR lamps took the place of conventional sources commonly used for recessed downlighting.
The ColorBlast 12 uplights the roof deck canopy with dynamic color for a visual counterpoint to the house.
The company notes that the structure's entire LED lighting installation consumes just 1.3 watts of energy per square foot, compared with the average house of about 1.7 to 2.3 watts per square foot, including plug loads for the average house.
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City of Urbana Taking Bids on LED Street Lamp Project
SSLDesign News Staff
October 3, 2008...The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, the city of Urbana, Illinois and Sternberg Lighting will reportedly be working together to replace the street lights on Goodwin Avenue with LED lighting fixtures in May 2009, according to an article in the DailyIllini.com.
Urbana Public Works Director, Bill Gray said in the article that the Urbana Public Works Department is currently designing the lighting fixtures and searching for manufacturers who can model the lamps to resemble those on Green Street.
"The City of Urbana engineering staff would specify the fixtures, plan for the area, advertise the work, open bids, award the contract to the lowest responsible bidder and enter into the contract with the bidder," Gray said. "Once the issue of notice to proceed is in place, the contractor would perform the work."
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Light Emitting Designs Unveils Three Linear LED Fixtures
SSLDesign News Staff
October 3, 2008...Light Emitting Designs LLC, a maker of LED luminaires for the commercial and industrial markets, has announced three new 12v LED linear fixtures. The linear fixtures come in lengths of 12 to 60-inches in a choice of day light or soft white. They consume between for and 16 watts of power. Each 12-inch length provides 150 lumens. The luminaires have a CRI of 75 or above and three year warranty. The company says that all of the 12v luminaires are dimmable. The luminaires are available in three different housing styles: “S” (Square) Series with square extruded white powder coat aluminum housing; “R” (Round) Series with round extruded brushed aluminum housing that is rotatable to 360 degrees; "SC" (Showcase) Series: show case extruded brushed aluminum housing that is rotatable to 360 degrees. SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
DOE Has Busy Week in SSL Realm
LIGHTimes Staff
October 2, 2008...The DOE has been busy this week, especially in the realm of solid state lighting. It made announcement about the L Prize competition, released details about newly tested products evaluated through CALIPER program, and released applications and lists of possible topics for its SBIR/SBTT grants for 2009. Also, the DOE’s Energy Star program for solid state lighting has now gone into effect. Tom Griffiths, publisher of LIGHTimes and Solid State LIghting Design will cover these topics more fully in his Oct 2, 2008, editorial. SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
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Commentary & Perspectives...
Energy Star for Solid State Lighting Goes Live
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
October 2, 2008...It's another step in the right direction for LED lighting! The US Department of Energy announced on Tuesday that:
“...the ENERGY STAR Solid-State Lighting program is now effective. On Wednesday, September 23, 2008, the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) formally adopted LM-80-2008, "Approved Method for Measuring Lumen Depreciation of LED Light Sources." With the approval of LM-80, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has in place all of the industry recognized test procedures needed for qualifying products as ENERGY STAR. IESNA will publish the final version of LM-80 in the coming days.
"The next step for DOE is to help manufacturers get ENERGY STAR qualified products to market. To help manufacturers navigate the qualification process, DOE has created a "Manufacturer's Guide for Qualifying Solid-State Lighting Luminaires." [PDF will download into a new tab or window]. This document outlines the performance benchmarks that ENERGY STAR qualified products must meet, identifies testing facilities approved to conduct ENERGY STAR testing, and establishes the protocols manufacturers must follow to submit this information for approval. This document is designed to complement the ENERGY STAR SSL Criteria version 1.0 [loads into yet another new tab/window]....”
(As a side note, don't bother to head towards the Energy Star website to find those two documents. If they are there, they are well hidden and you might end up staring at the EPA's version of the "Residential Lighting Fixture (RLF) version 4.2" which is the deficit "evil half-spec" that we are all expecting to be rescinded once the silly season passes and the Office of the Inspector General completes their investigation into the EPA's negligence and ill-intent... Consider that my politically correct version of the story).
With the official activation of the real Energy Star criteria, it would seem fitting to call this phase of the SSL industry timeline, "Accountability Version 1.0". There are two big deals involved in this. First, there is LM-80, which provides a finalized, recognized spec for the LED industry through which the useful lifetime of an individual LED can be predicted. No doubt it isn't perfect, and there will continue to be debate on whether 70% lumen depreciation is the best "magic number", but when are such debates new for any technical specification? It's a tool, it will work fairly predictably, and when holes make themselves apparent, there will be adjustments and revisions to make the tool even better. With LM-79 in place, there will effectively be a single methodology for an LED manufacturer to spec its product lifetime, which levels the information field for the module and luminaire manufacturers.
The second big deal in the Energy Star criteria will be the requirement for luminaire manufacturers to validate their efficiency claims. They have had the opportunity to do so for some time, but as an industry, the push should be on to get onto the Energy Star list simply to prove you can back up your datasheet claims for overall performance and product lifetime. It will only take a few companies having "made the grade" in order to really begin the industry branding message that Energy Star will initially imply. Version 1.0 here is more about quality and living up to expectation, than about performance. That's pretty easy to figure out based on the fact most of the criteria are based on efficacies of 24-29 lumens/watt, compared to the CFL incumbents that are running around 60 lm/w. The "tough" criteria are reserved for the downlights, that set the bar at 35 lm/w.
All that seems easy enough to meet, given that state-of-the-art warm white LEDs are currently exceeding 60 lm/w, but there are still a few areas the module and luminaire manufacturers need to catch up on. In the just-released Round 6 CALiPER testing, out of something like 23 products, only 3-4 would currently qualify for this current category A Energy Star spec. You can get the detailed downloads that include the specific products by agreeing to the DOE's "no commercial use" policy (aka, the "no knocking the competitors using this data" rule). Virtually all met the efficacy standards, most met the CCT and CRI requirements, and something like, oh... virtually none met the power factor spec for commercial applications, with a few barely sneaking in at the residential level.
It would lead one to believe that there is something inherently incompatible between power factor and LEDs, except one downlight on the list managed to pull a .99. For the residential builders and users who might be new to this consideration, power factor is simply how much of the power that is fed to an electrical device is consumed by the device. The excess is pretty much pure wasted energy (unlike the waste heat from an incandescent bulb that at least heats up the house a bit in the non-summer months...). It also causes power companies headaches because low overall power factors cause a whole series of challenges for them... not only do they have to supply more energy than the user actually pays for, but they also have to compensate to clean the power back up as the low power factor devices send the equivalent of out of phase waves back down the line (if you've seen a an area where different sets of waves converge along a shoreline, you get the idea). For commercial users, power companies will often charge extra for power factors below .90. Consequently, SSL manufacturers have a goal of exceeding .90, not just to meet the Energy Star criteria, but to bolster their sales pitch versus CFL which are notoriously bad when it comes to power factor. CFLs are typically running around a .5 power factor, so a commercial building that has replaced the bulbs in the downlights is probably not enjoying as much savings as the simple reduction in "wattage" would seem to imply. A quick glance at some utility company rate sheets suggests that when the power factor moves below .9, they'll adjust the bill up by whatever percentage below .9 that the real facility power factor is. If that's a stack of CFLs causing the problem, their .5 factor will up the operating cost per bulb by 45% or so. There's some incentive to pitch a well-designed LED solution!
Maybe for "Industry Accountability version 2.0", in addition to meeting the next big milestone of 70 lm/w, maybe we can get a little pressure applied to the incumbents so they have to meet identical standards for simple things like efficiency, CCT and power factor in order to keep their Energy Star mark. Just a thought.
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