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Luminus Devices Raises $19 Million
LIGHTimes News Staff
February 23, 2010...Luminus Devices, Inc., the maker and developer of PhlatLight LEDs based in Billerica, Massachusetts USA, reported the closing of its round of funding totaling $19 million. The round was led by current investors Argonaut Private Equity, Braemar Energy Ventures, Paladin Capital Group and Stata Venture Partners. The funding comes less than six weeks after the company settled its dispute with Hercules Growth Capital in which Luminus alleged that Hercules reneged on its lending agreement and seized its bank accounts (Ref: Coverage). At the time, Hercules claimed that luminus's finances deteriorated so rapidly that it doubted that it could make its $800,000 monthly payments. (Ref: Coverage). After the issue was resolved with Hercules, other investers stepped in with $19 million additional funding. SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Cooper Lighting Products Recognized in NGL Competition
SSLighting Design News Staff
February 23, 2010...Cooper Lighting of Peachtree City, Georgia USA, has announced that four of its products have been recognized for excellence by the Next Generation Luminaires™ (NGL) Solid-State Lighting Design Competition. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, and the International Association of Lighting Designers, the second annual NGL competition was created to recognize and promote excellence in the design of energy-efficient LED commercial lighting luminaires. Cooper Lighting’s four awarded products were chosen as winners in four different categories of lighting for both indoor and outdoor environments.
For the competition, twelve judges independently assessed their lighted performance and appearance, construction, and photometric data of 126 products. The judges focused special attention on serviceability/replacement issues. Forty-three commercial LED products were chosen as “recognized” winners and four were honored as “best in class.” The winning products were announced and awarded at a ceremony at the Strategies in Light conference in Santa Clara, California held on February 11, 2010.
Cooper notes that the products have been “recognized”, meaning that they are recommended for specification. These products include Cooper Lighting’s Halo Stasis LED track lighting luminaires, the Halo LED 900 recessed downlight series, the Invue LED Entri wall-mount luminaires, and the Streetworks OVH LED Cobrahead roadway luminaire.
Cooper Lighting News Release
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Albeo Lights Up Thomas Jefferson Primary School
SSLighting Design News Staff
February 23, 2010...Albeo Technologies retrofit luminaires were used to replace the conventional lighting at Thomas Jefferson Primary School in Peoria, Illinois. Albeo estimates that the LED lighting retrofit at Thomas Jefferson will reduce the school's lighting energy load by 49%.
Albeo of Boulder, Colorado USA, contends that Thomas Jefferson is the first school entirely lit with white-LED Solid-State Lighting (SSL) technology. Thomas Jefferson Primary School is reportedly undergoing extensive reconstruction to repair damage caused by fire in November of 2008. Included in the renovation is the replacement of over 600 T12 fluorescent fixtures with Albeo’s dimmable T8LED Troffers.
Dave Ryon, District #150's Director of Capital Programs with direction from the Board of Education, specified LED lighting for project because of the benefits and sustainability of solid-state technology.
Albeo News Release
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High Tech Lights LLC Joins Energy Star Partnership
SSLighting Design News Staff
February 23, 2010...(Revised) A Hawaii-based startup, High Tech Lights LLC reports that it has become an Energy Star partner as it moves to promote its Environmentally Friendly Lighting (EFL) line of "LED light bulbs". The company claims that its product line, including the T8, T5 replacement tubes and AR111 downlights, have a demonstrated LED lifetime and system efficacy that it feels can put it in contention for future Energy Star approval, once certification standards for those form-factors come into being. The current integral lamp draft specification from Energy Star does not include specifications for fluorescent tube replacements. High Tech Lights LLC uses Cree LEDs in its replacement lamps and luminaires.
College Lucie Aubrac Chooses Anolis
SSLighting Design News Staff
February 19, 2010...Anolis ArchSource Outdoor 36 RGB lighting fixtures were installed in a 'winter garden' feature in the atrium at the newly refurbished and re-opened College Lucie Aubrac in Dunkerque, France. The College Lucie Aubrac is one of the country's first Haute Qualité Environnementale (High Quality Environmental) colleges. Anolis points out that HQE is the standard for green building in France. It is based on the principles of sustainable development first set out at the 1992 Earth Summit. The standard is controlled by the Paris based Association pour la Haute Qualité Environnementale.
The garden was an integral part of architect Wallyn Sézille Eurl's vision for the re-build and lighting. According to Anolis the lighting enables the space to be enjoyed after dark in addition to bringing an exciting new dynamic to the space. LEDs were naturally chosen for all the energy saving and environmentally friendly properties such as low power and maintenance requirements and long lamp life. The college also wanted a good quality LED which emitted very smooth colours. The sleek, homogenized output of the Anolis lightsource was perfect for the job. Electrical contractors SET Space Tertiare specified Anolis. They have used Anolis products on many previous projects, and they like their reliability and robust engineering. Anolis News Release
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LTP Designs & Supplies Lighting for Perryn Road Footbridge in London
SSLighting Design News Staff
February 19, 2010...Lighting Technology projects (LTP) has designed, installed an architectural lighting scheme for the new Perryn Road footbridge that traverses the busy A40, a main highway into London from western part of the UK.
SH Structures, who fabricated the 32.6 metre bright yellow single span steel bridge that now crosses the A40 in Acton, London W3, appointed LTP as a specialist lighting sub-contractor and consultant. The bridge was part of a major project by Transport For London (TFL) that also replaced the two 1920's Western Avenue road bridges in this area. Architects at Grimshaws and consulting engineers/architects Hyder Consulting conceived and designed the lighting project. The main contractors for construction and delivery of the project were Carillion.
The LTP team was led by Terry Reeves and Jonathan Adkins, both of whom have considerable experience in lighting bridges. Lighting Technology Projects News Release
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Green Mountain Power Files to Be First in New England Region to Offer Led Streetlights
SSLighting Design News Staff
February 19, 2010...Green Mountain Power has reportedly submitted a plan to the Vermont Public Service Board to offer LED lights to replace worn-out mercury vapor street lights throughout its service area. The Colchester utility will reportedly be the first electric utility in New England, and one of only a handful in the country, to offer an LED-specific rate to customers for outdoor lighting.
If approved by regulators, customers will be able to request LEDs for both new streetlight installations, or if existing fixtures fail. Green Mountain Power will no longer use mercury vapor lights, among the least efficient of lighting products. Mercury vapor lights will be phased out over time.
"Offering this new lighting technology to our customers furthers Green Mountain Power's commitment to being an environmentally responsible company," said Mary Powell, Green Mountain Power president and chief executive officer. "By promoting energy efficient technology we help customers to reduce the amount of energy they use and we also protect Vermont night sky." The type of LED lights being used are full cut off, meaning no light will shine above the fixture.
Compared with mercury vapor bulbs, LED lights produce a comparable amount of light with a 66 percent savings in energy use or watts. In addition, LEDs are extremely long-lasting. An LED luminaire has a potential lifespan of more than 25 years of regular night usage. This compares to 5-7 years for traditional street lamp bulbs.
The LED fixtures also help reducing light pollution and glare.
Green Mountain Power News Release
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Commentary & Perspectives...
Strategies in Light still the premier US LED event
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
February 19, 2010...When it comes to the broader LED industry and supply chain, Strategies in Light, held February each year in San Jose, California, is the place to be in the US for the latest market updates and technology. From its humble beginnings as a "here comes the LED technology" conference focus back in 1999/2000, Strategies has definitely shifted its strength into an exhibition platform (80+ exhibits this year). As the LED market has matured, the event has followed the trends "up market". Not that many years back, it was about the materials, processes and technologies that created LEDs. As the supply chain has consolidated and narrowed (as they always do), the 2010 event continued the trend to be less about "how you do them" and more about "how you put them to use", with a particular focus in the lighting space. If you engineer LED luminaires/fixtures, and are looking for the latest trends in "the ingredients" that make a better solid state light, or LED backlight, there was plenty to hear and see. We'll outline just a few of the nuggets for the broader LED industry and its applications.
As with any Strategies, major highlights always come from Strategy Unlimited's "Dr. Bob" Steele, and his High-Brightness LED Market Review and Forecast. True to the focus, his market numbers, which we always consider to be the best in the industry, are tallied from the package LED level. The 2009 numbers were, in a sense, no surprise. From Q3 2008 to 1Q 2009, the LED industry pretty much fell off the cliff. Bob's look at 18 publicly traded LED manufacturers showed a 29% drop during that period, and likely those represented more stability than the market in whole. The exciting thing was the bounce-back that occurred from Q1 2009 through the rest of the year, as numbers climbed 89% from their lows, finishing 2009 a modest 9.5% above the overall 2008 numbers. A near-death experience isn't so traumatic when the hindsight shows growth. Lighting and display-containing segments reflected good double-digit growth (24% and 17%), while traffic signals experienced an 18% downturn, which we would attribute to the combination of application saturation (most signals are now LED-based) and the tighter capital equipment budgets that most municipalities are working with.
While mobile phone handsets and smart phones showed an overall decrease, those stalwarts which have driven the LED market growth for much of the last decade have been replaced in their preeminence by LED backlights and displays. In 2008, only about 10% of the laptops on the market had LED backlighting. For 2009, that number had shifted dramatically up to 50% penetration of the technology in the new models. For 2010, predictions have ranged towards expecting 90-100% penetration into the notebook/netbook space. LED-based backlighting in monitors and TVs is shaping up to be a massive market-maker for 2010 as well. Numbers vary, ranging up to forecasts of 39 million LED-backlit TVs for 2010, but Bob felt more comfortable with something in the 22 million unit ballpark, representing about 15% penetration, and the start of a move that could be expected to lead to near 100% adoption over a fairly short span.
LED lighting is rightly generating a lot of buzz, and the market isn't disappointing. While anything but big in terms of its penetration, it is clear that momentum has arrived with 24% segment growth in 2009 and 32% predicted here in 2010. Overall, Strategies Unlimited is forecasting a 44% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the lighting segment looking out the next 5 years. That represents a growth in LED sales from less than $1B now to something more in the $5B range by 2014. General lighting, and especially TV and display backlighting, will be driving the LED industry to $8.2B, a predicted 53% growth, here in 2010. Even more exciting is Bob's expectation of a overall 30% CAGR for the HB-LED industry, reaching over $20B worth of 'packaged LED value' in 2014. Significantly, those TVs and displays will represent half of that 2014 industry revenue. With LEDs continuing their drop in "dollars per lumen" there would appear to be no doubt more than a little increase in some key capacity areas will be required, including substrates and in the LED chip production equipment arena. Companies like Aixtron and Veeco (the A to V's of MOCVD reactor-suppliers, which underpin the LED manufacturing technology) are seeing this ramp now, and reporting the revenue growth to match.
Interesting tech... There were also some technology highlights that caught our attention in the LED arena. The first was in a discussion with Eran Fine, CEO of Oree (not to be confused with "Cree" when looking at the name badges). Oree, which means "My light" in Hebrew, was showing "planar LED" technology that could find its way into a number of applications in the future. In the simplest description, Oree starts with existing commercial LEDs, and redirects the light across a reflective surface a little smaller than the size of a business card. The result is a glowing RGB-driven panel, that is initially targeted to bring direct-backlit capabilities, most notably local dimming, to the LED TV manufacturers, at a cost-point closer to edge-lit solutions. It also provides the manufacturers with the ability to deliver the thinner TV solutions that are the edge-lit technology has also made popular. We had the pleasure of meeting Oree's chairman, former CEO of Philips SSL business unit, Peter van Strijp. Mr. van Strijp's involvement pretty clearly indicates Oree's plans to move the technology into the "glowing panel" arena of general purpose lighting. Given the recent advances in LED efficacy, it's not unreasonable to assume that an approach like Oree's will be able to give OLEDs a run for their money for a number of years while that technology develops.
We also took advantage of the opportunity to spend a little time with both Bridgelux and Luminus Devices, two LED companies that are well positioned to keep a healthy pressure on the current top players in the arena. Bridgelux has just rolled out a wide offering of multi-chip packages that take a number of individual unpackaged LED die, and places them on a single compact board (think dime to half-dollar size). The packages take the "bright egg" approach that covers the full array with the yellow-orange toned phosphor, making it look somewhat like the yolk of a small egg. The company claims to be only one of two significant players that is still making progress on 'lateral chip' designs. Virtually all the others are focused on vertical designs, which are not yet as cost effective as the laterally oriented chips. With warm white efficacies of better than 75 lumens/watt, their new ES line is targeted at enabling LED replacement lamp developers to exceed the approximate 45 lm/w system efficiency requirements that are bundled into the latest Energy Star requirements. Bridgelux' RS series moves up the brightness curve, and is rated to provide 3000 lumens in warm white, and 4500 lumens in cool white from a roughly 50w input. They've taken the a design approach to maintain those lumens in a hotter platform (referred to as "hot" lumens), to allow luminaire developers to design their systems with LED test point temperature of up to around 60-degrees C (ouch... don't touch), which trickles down to real-world luminaire case temperatures instead of the more idyllic, but seldom achieved 75 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. To round out the line, they're also offering the LS series, which uses the "L" for "little", producing 240 lumens in warm white an up to 360 cool white lumens from a 4 to 4.5w input, and is targeted at MR-16 and decorative replacement lamps. Notably, their approach is promising pricing in reasonable quantities in the 1 to 1.5 cent per lumen range as a result of their lateral-chip manufacturing efficiencies. That compares favorably with some of the new offerings out there, including Cree's new MPL-EasyWhite multi-chip package which ballparks in the 2 cents per lumen range. Obviously, each will claim their advantages, but a competitive market is a healthy market for growth.
We've always been appreciative of technologies that have a clear market niche that can create immediate profits, and which can then be leveraged into broader and potentially more lucrative arenas. Luminus Devices has always been one our favorite examples of this, with their extraordinarily large "photonic lattice" chips that lent themselves marvelously to the DLP-TV arena. The PhlatLight brand smoked that market, commanding impressively quick market share, with performance to match. Unfortunately for Luminus, the DLP projection TV market completely dried up as the LCDs used in flat panel TVs and displays plummeted in price, with consumers voting for the thinner solutions as the prices neared equalization. While Luminus LEDs continue to capture market share in the "pocket" and now standard projector market, they had a bit of a rough road as one market dried up before their technology had really reached an adoption stage in the up and coming general lighting market. While well suited for the 'multiple kilo-lumen' oriented market that will eventually supplant those metal-halides hanging from our gymnasiums and factory ceilings, they hadn't gotten there yet and have suffered for it. Their new CEO, Keith Ward, is a big believer in how "LEDs will change everything about how we 'do' lighting' as the rate of innovation picks up speed." Amen to that. Keith's experience is in the "real" lighting industry, and he's keenly aware of the gaps that exist between the so-called "chipheads" the "lighting folks". It also turns out that Keith is heading a NEMA task force called Enlighten America that is 2 years into a 5 year plan to reach out to US building owners and operators with the "enhanced lighting energy efficiency = enhanced competitiveness" message. Keith is featured there on an introduction video that sums up the message succinctly (and notably, reaches towards the same audience that our SSL Summit series is beginning to bring in... more 2010-2011 series updates coming soon).
The future is bright indeed...
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