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University of Central Florida Lights Ballroom with Cree LED Downlights and Troffers
SSLDesign News Staff
May 27, 2010...The University of Central Florida (UCF) has installed Cree LR6 LED downlights and LR24 LED troffers to light the Key West Ballroom of the student union.
UCF estimates it can save a minimum of $10,000 a year in energy and maintenance costs simply by replacing recessed downlights and troffers with Cree's LED fixtures. The new LED fixtures in the ballroom consume approximately 85 percent less energy than the old fixtures, reducing energy consumption from more than 10,000 watts to less than 1,500 watts. Also, the conventional T8 fluorescent light fixtures in the student government offices were replaced with 17 LED fixtures.
“When you consider the Key West ballroom lights are on for 16 to 18 hours each day, the payback is less than two years,” said Rick Falco, Associate Director Student Union, UCF. “The LED lighting also has better light quality—it’s easier on the eyes and it’s dimmable, which gives us greater flexibility for the wide range of events held in the ballroom.”
“I commend the UCF Student Government Association for taking the lead in bringing LED lighting to the student union, showing the impact students can have in driving green initiatives on their campuses,” said Deb Lovig, Cree, LED programs manager. “In addition to becoming a greener campus, UCF can reap the benefits of energy and maintenance savings for years to come.”
Douglas Opens Beauty Store with 100 Percent LED Lighting
SSLDesign News Staff
May 27, 2010...Douglas, a leading European beauty store chain, has chosen an innovative, holistic and future-oriented approach to set up an energy management system for a 300 m2 store. For the first time, the entire lighting system uses LED luminaires only. Douglas got the LED luminaires from Zumtobel. They can be individually controlled using a Luxmate Emotion control system. Zumtobel boaasts that compared with a reference store in Speyer, which is fitted with conventional lighting technology, it has been possible to save 50 percent of energy costs by the new lighting solution alone.
Zumtobel designed the solution to meet both energy consumption requirements and Douglas’ high quality standards. Zumtobel points out that LED technology and the options it provides for lighting control open up completely new paths in terms of creative design. LED technology can allow dynamic lighting scenarios to help to make the store design more attractive.
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DOE Releases Summary of Round 10 CALiPER Test Results
SSLDesign News Staff
May 25, 2010...The Department of Energy released a report summarizing Round 10 of its CALiPER testing program, which was conducted from October 2009 to February 2010. In this round, 28 products LED-based products, representing a range of product types and technologies, were tested with both spectroradiometry and goniophotometry using absolute photometry. All SSL products were tested following the IESNA LM-79-08 testing method. Testing also included measurements of surface temperatures (taken at the hottest accessible spots on the luminaire).
Round 10 of testing examined: parking structure luminaires; outdoor wallpack luminaires; cove lighting luminaires (including two products marketed as “AC LED” products); and LED-based replacement lamps.
In order to benchmark against tests of similar products that use conventional light sources, traditional parking structure, wallpack, and cove light products were also tested and included in the summary report (using absolute photometry performed on anonymously purchased samples). The DOE report summarized the basic photometric performance results for each product and compared the results to similar products that use conventional light sources, results from earlier rounds of CALiPER testing, and manufacturer ratings.
The DOE points out that overall, the latest series of testing included larger (physical) luminaires with higher wattage, on average, than earlier rounds of testing. The average efficacy observed has not increased in this round, the SSL products are now able to attain the same levels of efficacy on average in both significantly larger, higher light output luminaires and smaller integral replacement lamps. The DOE says the tested LED products are clearly competitive with benchmark products in an increasing number of lighting applications.
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Ringdale Signs Exclusive LED Lighting Agreement in Japan
SSLDesign News Staff
May 25, 2010...Ringdale of Austin, Texas USA, a developer of commercial LED lighting fixtures, announced the signing of an exclusive licensing, manufacturing and distribution agreement for the region of Japan with Sojitz Systems Corp. The Sojitz Corporation is a holding company with over $50 billion in revenues and a strong market position in Japan.
Under the terms of the agreement, Sojitz manufactured lighting fixtures for streets, parking structures, billboards, building exteriors, warehouses, offices, retail spaces, parks and restaurants will be based on Ringdale's ActiveLED technology.
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Philips Release a Line of LED-Fixtures for Consumers in New Lighting Fixture Portfolio
SSLDesign News Staff
May 25, 2010...Philips unveiled an extensive new range of designer fixtures for the North American consumer market. The new portfolio includes more than 800 new products. Among these new products are the company's new LivingColors and Ledino range. Philips claims that these LED fixtures are the first all-LED line of consumer fixtures. Philips says its brand will include the sleek new Ledino range, which uses LEDs to appeal to consumers looking for a more minimalist, yet elegant contemporary look. SSL Design PageTwo members login for more. Guests can view membership details.
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Commentary & Perspectives...
Driving down the costs - Part 2
Tom Griffiths - Publisher
May 27, 2010...In Part 1 of this series, we mentioned that one of the common questions we get from those outside of the "chip head" side of the industry is, "Why don't they just make the LEDs (and/or solar cells) cheaper? We offered the conclusion that at the lower level of the technology supply chain, rocket science is involved. Cost reductions are happening, but it is a process of innovation that follows an evolutionary path, helped along with some occasional breakthroughs. Here in the second of this two-part commentary, we'll cover what's happening to move those costs down in the middle of the supply chain which will help bring down the costs of the LED "bulbs", luminaires and even your flat screen TV.
LEDs, the other rocket science... It wasn't that long ago that packaged "lighting quality" LEDs were running at $10 for 100 lumens, or 10-cents per lumen (remember, blue and white weren't commercially available until around 2003). Announcements in the last few months have shown us 2-cents per lumen (Cree), then 1.5-cents (Bridgelux), and most recently less than 1-cent for warm white (Intematix, part of today's news). It's assured that Philips, Osram, Nichia and others out there aren't standing pat at 10-cents per, they just didn't happen to specifically promote the price in the their announcements. That's a factor of 10 decrease in something like 5 years.
A couple of key areas are driving that improvement, including manufacturing process efficiencies at the underlying equipment and material level (discussed in Part I) and progressive improvements in the LED designs, most notably in the area of light extraction.
It might be helpful for those that live higher on the chain, including luminaire manufacturers and lighting decision makers, to catch some basic LED tech-level stuff to understand why it's worth being patient, and to help decode some of the messaging that the LED manufacturers educate us with. Without going to too deep a level (trust me, I'm not qualified), there are two basic elements of making LEDs more efficient. One is generating photons, and the other is getting them out of there. Buzz words like "internal quantum efficiency" and others are used to describe some of these interactions. Much of the light generation hurdle has been accomplished in the material rocket-science that underpins this stuff, as witnessed by recent announcements of lab results for white LEDs of over 200 white lumens per watt. It's generally agreed that there is a little bit over 300 white lumens "hiding" in a watt of energy (we specify it as white, since lumens are a measure of the human eye's reactivity to the spectrum, and white balances that out, although there are ways to skew that, such as going towards the greenish which our eyes are more sensitive to). If we've made it to 200 out of the 300, it is assured that the material is generating more than 200 lumens worth since the "extraction" portion is far from perfectly efficient.
Getting the light out... When it comes to extraction, there are a number of avenues being pursued, including the use of more reflective materials "around" and under the light emitting surface, shaping surfaces, channeling (things like Luminus Devices PhlatLight with "Phlat" deriving from their "photonic lattice" approach) and integrating "optics" effectively down to the surface of the LED chip itself (LED producer Illumitex recently made their commercial debut citing that integration as their special mojo). There is also progress continuing in the phosphors that convert the typical blue LED source light into the other colors in the spectrum. New nanophosphors ("quantum dots") offer an interesting development, as their nanometer scale materials don't scatter back much, if any, of the photons that hit it, suggesting a 15+% improvement in conversion efficiencies right there. Improvements also continue in getting the heat away from the emitting surface. As long as there is less than 100% efficiency, the leftover is heat, and semiconductors don't like too much of it. The more more you can dissipate away from the emitting surface, the more light you can pack into a smaller space. It's all still rocket-science, and continuing with that same combination of steady progress and breakthroughs.
Drivers and power... LED lighting is not made up of just LEDs and a wire. LEDs run on low voltages, and most prefer DC, although AC LEDs are available and do save one step in the power-conditioning process. There's room for improvement in both drivers (which feed and control the LEDs) and power supplies (which feed the drivers, and can actually be integrated with the drivers into an amazingly small package - ref recent Lightfair commentary). From what I understand of it, this isn't an area that's rocket science, per se, but more driven by demands for high quality, but without the volume (right now) to match. Highly reliable power control chips aren't anything new, and have often been driven by a variety of military, medical and other high-precision, high-reliability applications. That obviously shifts the required value curve away from "lots and cheap" to "few and whatever saves lives". Progress will be natural, and as mentioned in my last column, we're already looking at capable solutions for "LED lightbulbs", such as NXP is offering, in the sub-$1 range. What needs to happen is for the lamp and luminaire manufacturers to employ nothing but high-quality solutions, and for the industry ("us-all", as we say in Texan), to start holding itself accountable with the, "Whose driver?" inquiry becoming as commonplace as, "Whose LEDs?" has become. Increasing volume and standard semiconductor creativity will solve this one.
Optics and heat... LED lighting also isn't just made up of electricity. There are also optics, heat management and environmental management (dust, humidity, water, etc.) issues that are all progressing in terms of both cost and capability. Companies like Carclo and Fraen are doing a lot to bring both standard and custom optic solutions to the SSL manufacturers. Need a 60-degree optic designed to work with the Luxeon Rebel? Got it. Need a bank of matching optics to fit an array of Cree's latest? No sweat. Volume and a natural tendency to settle on some more popular form factors will drive those costs right on down. Heat management is an interesting frontier, in that it can help address both the aspects of getting more light in less space (which is a selling point for LED lights) as well as assisting in the environmental packaging. Standard approaches use different metals to get the heat immediately away from the LEDs, and then to dissipate them into the surrounding air (which proves to be an interesting discussion in itself when you think about how to get heat out of electronics when you're in the near vacuum of space... but I diverge).
The challenge of metal is that the more "fins" or vents you add, the more opportunity there is for contamination and for those heat dissipating channels to get plugged up (look inside your computer sometime... and remember you're breathing part of that stuff in before it got sucked into there). Contamination leads to less ability to dissipate the heat, which decreases efficiency and lifetime. Two interesting approaches to helping manufacturers have hit our radar scope this last year. One is from Nuventix, a fairly new Austin, Texas-based company that has targeted SSL for it's Synjet active thermal management technology. Think of it as small, ultra-high frequency speakers that vibrate the air in a synchronized fashion to create an actual directional flow. Way more reliable, and quieter than fans, but still forcing heat where you want it go. In a different direction, we've had the chance for a little dialog with GrafTech International, which uses special graphite technologies as highly-efficient passive heat spreaders. Imagine a cobrahead streetlight, with a good sized surface area, and lots of exposure to the elements. With GrafTech's solution, you mount bond the heat generating LED array to the graphite surface, which wraps around the inside top and sides of the fixture. The magic is that spreads the heat pretty evenly over the whole of the graphite, which then transmits to the whole of the outer casing, suggesting the opportunity to drop the fins and other debris-susceptible exterior extrusions, as well as greatly simplifying the thermal design.
Integrated lamps, luminaires and even TVs... As we mentioned last time, we might never get to the $5 LED lightbulb, but not because we can't, but rather because we don't want to. If a solution offers more value than its predecessors, and improves on efficiency and/or saves on lifetime costs, why should it have to sell for a price that makes it a "no brainer" in terms of simple acquisition costs. I can buy a good ranch-capable horse for somewhat less than a used dirt bike and for a lot less than a decent 4-wheel drive truck (apples to apples with the horse, you know). The truck does almost every job better. PCs created a whole new set of efficiencies and entertainment possibilities, and manufacturers have figured out that they really didn't need to keep coming down in price much below $500 to keep them moving into households across the world. They hit the value point at $500 and have stayed there, with features and capabilities being added, rather than prices proceeding lower.
We can expect to see much the same approach in LED lighting, whether at the replacement lamp (aka "bulb") or at the luminaire ("fixture plus lamp") level. The first phase of that will be the cost reduction phase, driven by the underlying technology, as well as simple manufacturing efficiencies as production capacity and sales volumes both increase. Phase 2 will kick in when we hit "the price point", whatever that may be for the particular end product we're talking about. That's actually a series of price points, that will define "cheap" from "higher end", with each having it's appropriate value story and applications. For replacement lamps, $10-$20 will probably be as far as it needs to go, and then the features will start to pick up. More light, smaller package, better color. Heck, we heard a really interesting indication from one of the Japanese companies that they intend to bring out light bulbs with remote controls so that you can turn it on, then change the color at will, with the eventual intention for sensors in the house to decide your mood and adjust the ambiance for you. So do they feed you more blue when you're feeling blue, or do they brighten the light to brighten your mood? For now, we'll suffice it to say that we've not even tapped much of the end-products' innovation curve. The new light cometh...
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