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Palo Alto Discount and Survey on LED Bulbs Gets Big ResponseApril 15, 2010...While some municipalities have had programs for discounts or exchange for LED holiday lights, Palo Alto is among the first that we have heard of to do something similar with LED-based bulbs for general lighting. The purpose of the discount was to attract people to trying out two different LED bulbs and find out how consumers liked them.
The Palo Alto utilities department reports getting overwhelming response to its program that gave coupons for deep discounts on dimmable LED bulbs at local hardware stores. After the discounts, the LED bulbs were $8 each (down from the $38 retail price), according to an article in the San Jose Mercury News.
The two bulbs to be tried are the Pharox 6-watt dimmable warm-white bulb from Lemnis Lighting and the Novicomm's 9-watt dimmable warm-white bulb.
After the initial coupon offering, some 2,000 of the LED bulbs were purchased by Friday of last week.
The city revealed in the article that it is ordering an additional 1000 LED-based bulbs to be sold at the same price. The bulbs are expected to arrive in about a month.
Joyce Kinnear, marketing services manager for the city's utilities department commented in the article, Mi<"We're really excited about the level of interest in the program, and we're looking at doing some other LED programs later in the year."
An online survey
, asks several questions of the LED bulb coupon users such as: Which bulb do you prefer? Rate the light output of the LED bulbs. Will you continue to use LED light bulbs? At what price would you be willing to purchase an LED light bulb?
Also, the surve had a section for comments.
The city hopes to gain an incite into consumer's preferences about LED bulbs and how consumers rate the performance of the two specific bulbs.
Only last year an offer for a discount on compact fluorescent bulbs reportedly resulted in only 325 bulbs purchased in a month.
Sunovia Energy Technologies to Triple Facility, Add 68 Employees in Move to Sarasota County |
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Seoul Semiconductor Acriche Achieves 150 lm/W
LIGHTimes News Staff
April 15, 2010... The company indicated that the mass production of 150 lm/W Acriche is scheduled to begin by the end of the year accelerating the replacement of halogen lamps, incandescent light bulbs and fluorescent lighting with LED technology.
The company points out that the European Union’s legislation banning the sale of incandescent light bulbs of more than 100 watts from September 2009 and future steps to ban all use of inefficient conventional electric lighting are being hailed as a turning point for LED adoption.
Seoul Semiconductor says that Acriche's ability to operate without using an AC-DC converter, significantly reduces energy losses and results in cost saving compared to standard DC LED technology. Seoul Semiconductor boasts that two of the world’s largest lighting companies already have products, for lighting applications, in mass production using the Acriche, In addition, more than 100 companies are beginning to utilze the Acriche in various applications. Company News Release
Seoul Semiconductor has introduced its new 150 lm/W Acriche LED light engines. Acriche light engines boast the ability to be driven with alternating current without the need for an AC/DC converter.
Seoul Semiconductor announced in February that its Acriche achieved a luminous efficiency of 100 lm/w, and the company began to put the product into mass production in April. Seoul Semiconductor reports that it also recently succeeded in achieving 150 lm/W.
Luminus Devices Announces Rapid Adoption of SST-50 and SST-90 LEDs for Indoor and Outdoor Lighting
SSLighting Design News Staff
April 15, 2010...Luminus Devices reports that its flagship SST-50 and SST-90 Phlatlight LED products
power several new indoor and outdoor lighting applications.
The company boasts that the SST-50 and SST-90 Phlatlight LEDs were introduced less than a year ago and have experienced rapid adoption by the lighting user community. The LEDs were reportedly designed into volume lighting applications including: retail and residential track lighting; PAR / MR replacement lamps, high bay / low bay commercial and industrial lighting; and outdoor area lighting including roadway and acorn fixtures.
The SST-50 and SST-90 are high lumen output single-source LEDs, with input power of 5 watts and 10 watts respectively. Both are available in surface mount packages, have energy efficiencies in excess of 100 lumens/watt, color temperatures ranging from 3,000K-6,500K and L70 lumen maintenance of 60,000 hours.
“Guth Lighting is leveraging the SST-90 across several fixtures in our product portfolio,” said Bob Catone, general manager, Guth Ligthing, a Philips Brand Company. “Clearly, LEDs represent the future of lighting and we believe Luminus LEDs will play an important part in defining that future.”
“The emergence of many first-class, world-wide lighting installations using our LED technology provides validation of our basic value proposition,” said Chuck DeMilo, director of global product marketing for Lighting, Luminus Devices. “Our customers recognize that Luminus’ big chip technology allows them to move away from the ubiquitous pixelated look and differentiate their fixture designs with a classical single-source aesthetic. And by using fewer sources they can reduce fixture cost and complexity, while enabling a solution with fewer points of failure.”
Luminus Devices News Release
Cree Announces New LED Platform Delivers 160 Lumens per Watt; Cree TrueWhite Technology Leveraged in New Zumtobel Fixtures
SSLighting Design News Staff
April 12, 2010...Cree of Durham, North Carolina USA, reports that its single chip XLamp® delivers efficacy of 160 lumens per watt at 350 mA. In other Cree related News, Zumtobel launched three new LED fixtures featuring Cree's TrueWhite LED technology.
The XM LED also delivers 750 lumens at 2 A, which it says is equivalent to the light output of a 60 W incandescent light bulb at less than 7 watts.
The new platform has a larger footprint than Cree’s XP family. Cree claims that the XM offers a unique combination of very high efficacy at very high drive currents. At 2 A, an XM LED reportedly produces 750 lumens at 110 lumens per watt. The company says that the thermal resistance of the XM platform is 2 degrees C per watt, which it claims is a 350 percent improvement over its flagship XLamp XP-E LED. Cree's News Release Regarding XLamp XM LED, Cree's News Release About Zumtobel Product,
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Osram Achieves 122 lm/W with 90+CRI LED Module
SSLighting Design News Staff
April 12, 2010...Osram reports having achieved 122 lm/W efficacy for an LED module with a color rendering index (CRI) greater 90. The module has a correlated color temperature of 2700 K.
The LED module boasts a luminous flux of over 1,800lm while using only 15W of power. Osram indicated that its compact size is especially suited to integration in downlights or spots.
Osram contends that using special chromaticity coordinate control techniques can achieve variations below the visual perception threshold. Chromaticity coordinate deviations are within LM-80 guidelines.
Osram says that it has achieved this efficiency record by combining the electronic and mechatronic skills of its solid-state lighting (SSL) business unit and the LED expertise of OSRAM Opto Semiconductors in Regensburg (Germany). Measurements were taken at the company’s in-house development laboratory.
Ingo Maurer Develops Two OLED Lamps with Novaled OLEDs
LIGHTimes News Staff
April 12, 2010...Ingo Maurer, an internationally renowned designer and producer of lamps and lighting systems, has developed two OLED lamps that are result of the collaboration with Novaled AG. Novaled reportedly developed transparent, efficient OLED modules for this purpose.
Ingo Maurer will present the two OLED lamps, the pendant lamp “Flying Future” as well as the table lamp “4 x 4 is 34” at the Light + Building Frankfurt. The OLEDs in these lamps are made on glass substrates and are transparent in the off-state. Novaled points out that with these unique features the organic LEDs open up unimagined freedom of design, which cannot be realized with any other light source.
Novaled News Release
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Cree XP-G LEDs Adopted for GE's 2011 LED Bulb; Cree Introduces Module Product Line Leveraging TrueWhite Technology
SSLighting Design News Staff
April 8, 2010...GE announced its Energy Smart LED bulb, a replacement for 40-watt incandescent lights that is powered by Cree's XP-G LEDs. While GE has its own LED company and its own LED technology in its Lumination business, GE apparently chose Cree LEDs because their superior performance.
The GE EnergySmart bulb uses 9 watts to produce 450 Lumens, and has an expected rated life of 25,000 hours.
In Other Cree related news, Cree has introduced its new line of LED module products. The new line of modules take advantage of Cree's TrueWhite Technology. Cree's first product in the new module line is the LMR4. Cree says it uniquely integrates driver electronics, optics and primary thermal management, making the compact module drop-in-ready. Cree's LMR4 module will be available during the summer of 2010.
GE Product Release Using Cree LEDs,
Cree LED Module News Release
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Cooper Lighting Expands Halo LED Recessed Downlight Offering
SSLighting Design News Staff
April 8, 2010... The company has also expanded its Halo 6” LED downlight product line to include the higher lumen 900 Series and 1200 Series (pictured on left), providing a wide and versatile selection of energy-efficient LED recessed downlighting options for general lighting in commercial, retail, institutional, and residential applications. Cooper Lighting News Release,
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Cooper Lighting, a division of Cooper Industries has expanded its Halo series of LED downlights. The LED H7 Collection now offers additional choices in LED color temperatures and higher lumen options.
The company's first LED downlight, the Halo 600 LED Series only came in one color temperature - nominal 3000K, and the lumen range was noted over 697 lumens depending on the trim, which was the specular reflector trim. The efficacy of the original Halo 600 downlight wasgreater than 40 lumens per watt (equal to 65W BR30 lamp). The Halo 600 Series is now available to include 4 color temperature choices and the lumen range is now available between 416-793 depending on the trim and selected color temperature.
PowerSecure Expands LED Lighting Business with Acquisition
SSLighting Design News Staff
April 8, 2010...Power Secure of Wake Forest, North Carolina USA, has expanded its LED lighting business through the acquisition of a majority interest in LED lighting development company, Innovative Electronic Solutions Lighting, LLC ("IES"). PowerSecure says that the acquisition of IES significantly enhances its LED lighting development capabilities. Furthermore, PowerSecure notes that the addition of these capabilities complements and builds on the Company's highly successful EfficientLights LED lighting business, which posted revenue growth of over 700% in 2009. PowerSecure reports that it will increase its ownership interest in IES from 67% to 100%. PowerSecure News Release SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
Bruck Lighting Launches New Ledra Chroma and Chroma II LED Spot Fixtures
LIGHTimes News Staff
April 8, 2010...Bruck Lighting Systems, Inc. has announced the launch of the new Ledra Chroma and Chroma II adjustable, high-output 10W LED spot fixtures.
The fixtures boast what the company says is the industry-best fixture-to-fixture color consistency of a mere +/- 50 Kelvin through the use of a single-source LED module with patented cold remote phosphor technology developed by Xicato, Inc.
An integral driver reportedly allows the fixture to work on most of Bruck's tracks with standard 12VAC transformers using the appropriate adaptor. Chroma's design has interchangeable reflectors or a decorative white glass shade for a variety of beam spread angles. The fixed snoot design of the Chroma II has a 40-degree internal reflector with a clear glass lens. The Chroma II will be available to ship soon. The Chroma I is in stock ready to ship.
Bruck Lighting says that while industry-standard LED binning structures allow for color points in a 7-step MacAdam Ellipse, its Ledra® Chroma performs to less than a 2-step that is centered on the Black Body Locus at each CCT on the CIE1931 graph.
The company revealed that the Ledra® Chroma Pendant series, as well as the Ledra Chroma G; gimbaled 3" recessed with decorative glass or reflector attachments, and Ledra® Chroma R; 3" 10- or 15-watt recessed fixtures using the same patented LED technology, will be released soon.
Bruck Lighting News Release
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Commentary & Perspectives...
LEDs, coming soon to a lightbulb near you
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
April 15, 2010...As one would expect from Light+Building week in Frankfurt, there were some encouraging product stories for the world of so-called LED lightbulbs. First out of the chute came an announcement from GE for a new A-lamp style bulb that was designed to replace a standard 40W incandescent. The 9-watt unit was is claimed to produce 450 lumens, last 25,000 hours, list for $50, and will be available... wait for it... at the end of this year, or "in early 2011". On the face of it, I will admit to a bit of a "big whoop" kind of reaction. Hey, just a guess here, but Intel is lined up to produce a X.X GHz processor in 2011, and Samsung is going to produce LED TVs that drop in price by XX% (you fill in the X's with numbers that feel good, and you'll probably be right enough). It's tricky to get excited about a 2011 product announcement that has the makings of a "been there, done that". At least by 2011 we expect the industry will be there and doing that from a number of suppliers.
Cree contributed to the early part of this news cycle with a nice double-header. First, the GE LED bulb news included the tidbit that Cree's XLamp XP-G was the basis of the new "integral replacement lamp" (the industry and Energy Star terminology, but we must be mindful to pander to the search engines with relevant phrases like "LED light" and "Energy Star light", and best of all, "LED bulb"... errgg). Even a nice quote from Norbert Hiller, Cree's GM and an all-around nice guy. Now that announcement was cool, since a) GE is presumably going to be big in LED lightbulbs, simply on the power of the brand and b) GE has its Lumination group, which also makes LEDs and LED products. Cree getting slotted in to a GE product, at more than just the rumor level, takes some doing. Hats off to Cree for that one. They also stirred up some other interesting news with the announcement of their new XM LED that delivers a nominal 160 lm/watt in cool white. It's a bigger chip, and when you drive it a bit harder, it can still produce 110 lm/watt while pumping out 750 lumens, which is enough to call itself a "60 watt replacement" on less than 7 watts, although technically the cool white isn't part of the Energy Star matrix. Availability is "Fall", which a testy buyer once pointed out to me is "a season, not a date". Nonetheless, the efficiency bar is being consistently raised by all the major players, and it's happening now.
Osram popped up this week as a contributor to the industry narrative with its own announcement of a 122 lm/w warm white module that pumps out 1800 lumens at just 15 watts. That's good on the face of it, and even gooder when you add in that the module is a very warm 2700K, and produces a CRI of greater than 90. For those still new to the LED-level of lighting technology, the basic formula for white is to excite a glob of phosphor with a pure blue "emitter" (LED), and the warmer the CCT, the less efficiently that will happen.
It's the same basic principal that makes a fluorescent bulb work, except in that case, it's a "beyond blue" high-voltage ultraviolet arc that is doing the exciting of the phosphors coating the inside of the tube. In both cases, the warmer and more rich you make the colors, the more broad-spectrum phosphor you need for the job. Exciting more kinds of phosphor cuts down the efficiency in lumens per watt, as you are spreading the initial amount of photons over a wider array of colors, and in the process, some of them don't make it out alive. (Do not mourn them, for energy is neither created nor destroyed, it's just shifted off to some other form). For an LED setup, there are other tricks you can add when you have multiple LED chips making up a module, such as throwing a few red ones in the mix to "warm" the color up without the need to phosphor-convert the red portion of your mix. Green LEDs are still lagging in their efficiency, so converting from blue or projecting a native green is pretty much a wash.
With a warm white starting point of better than 120 lm/watt, it would almost appear like it will soon take extra effort to design a downlight badly enough to produce less than 80 lm/watt ("Darn, it's still too efficient Joe... we need a crummier power supply and some really bad optics").
Not to be outdone at Light+Building, Philips showed its own 60w replacement that it plans for availability at the end of the year. The specs put it a step up from the GE announcement, claiming 806 lumens from 12 watts of input, which puts it at 67 lm/w compared to GE's 50. Philips is reportedly using its own Luxeon LEDs from Lumileds, and was the first company to offer a submission into the US Department of Energy's L-Prize competition, so there is no doubt they are serious, and with good reason to be. While the 2010 US market for 400-500 lumen bulbs (incandescent and CFL) is pegged at around 160 million units, the 725-750 lumen market ("60-watt equivalent") is a whopping 700 million units. 700M x 725lm @$.01/lm baselines at $5B worth of LEDs... if the magic wand replaced all the incumbents this year, without a huge pricing drop. Of course, that would tank numbers in subsequent years, since these won't be dying out in 1000-2000 hours of use... (Don't send us corrective letters on that one... it's just an intellectual exercise to keep everyone racing to get that 1st 100% of the market, so no one else gets a crack for the next 7 years...).
Along with that announcement, Philips also talked about improvements in its MASTER LEDspot MR-16 LED replacements. They've apparently added some electronic tricks to fool a conventional transformer into seeing the amount of load it needs to stay happy (presumably more sophisticated than adding a resistor to simulate extra load, as some auto tailight manufacturers were forced to do in order to keep the car's electronics from assuming the light was out because of the ultra-low power draw), or it may simply be conditioning the voltage, which typically rises on transformers when they see too light a load on the line. Classic low voltage failure mode. Some lights burn out, load decreases, voltage rises so the remaining bulbs are being progressively over-driven as the cascade failure rapidly continues.
So what are we watching for as the replacement bulb market shapes up? As we've said before, branding is king. While we expect some new entrants to have some good ideas, when it comes to the consumer market, especially with a long-lifetime not cheap item, brand reputation is going to speak volumes. I know GE, Philips or Osram Sylvania will be in business a few years from now, and they can make good on their warranty promise. Even at $40-$50, knocked down by $20 with incentives and rebates, daring consumers who like saving energy, and have some extra cash they don't mind investing in the "I have LED light bulbs that actually look good" prestige, will need confidence that the product is backed up. The "new guys" will have a tougher sell, to both the consumers and the retailers, to convince them they will be around if the bulb tanks up prematurely. Given the brand strength the leaders have, it is only natural that they can announce products that might be a little too pricey, or a little lower on lumens, which will act as "placeholders" for some pretty on-target (and on-price) LED bulbs come 2011 and 2012.
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