In a recent article in EE Times (Ready to bid incandescent bulb goodbye?) the author makes several statements concerning the phase out of incandescents and the deployment of fluorescent and light emitting diode (LED) based solid state lighting that confuse several issues.  First, the author states that “…the argument against incandescents has some technical weaknesses.”  The author’s arguments that follow do not constitute a sound technical comparison of lighting technologies.  The compelling argument against incandescents is simply that they are not nearly as efficient at converting electrical energy into visible light as are both fluorescent and LED lamps.

The article goes on to say “…the so-called waste heat of the incandescent is not actually wasted, but serves to help keep a cool area warm.”  In already warm interior environments the heat delivered by incandescent lighting is often removed through refrigeration (air conditioning) resulting in further energy consumption.  In general, using incandescent lighting as a heating device is not a satisfactory or energy efficient heating solution.

The reason for the widespread acceptance of incandescent lighting has been that incandescent lamps are inexpensive to manufacture and provide lighting that people find attractive.  As many bodies around the world have decided, the eventual elimination of incandescent lighting is one of the low hanging fruit in our efforts to reduce energy consumption and related carbon emissions.

In one section of particularly poorly researched text the author asks: “What about the use of incandescent bulbs in extremely hot or cool consumer applications, such as freezers, ovens and dryers? You can get a temperature-ruggedized incandescent bulb for just a little more than a standard bulb, but I don’t see electronic blubs (sic) (neither fluorescents nor LED) being viable for those situations coming soon.”

This point of the article could not be less well informed.  While oven and dryer lights are not opportunities for saving a great deal of energy, refrigerated cases in grocery stores have utilized fluorescent lighting in preference to incandescent lighting for many years. Since fluorescents are more energy efficient than incandescents they throw off less heat thus requiring less case refrigeration resulting in lower energy costs.  However, fluorescent lamps become less efficient at lower temperatures while LED lamps become more efficient as their temperature falls.  This fact and reduced maintenance costs from longer lived LED lighting have resulted in the recent and fairly widespread adoption of LED lighting for refrigerated cases leading to considerable savings in energy consumption and operating costs.

The article goes on to state “The disposal and recycling of incandescents is pretty straightforward; that’s not so for electronic bulbs.”  This generalization of the properties of “electronic bulbs” is also misleading.  By not calling attention to the individual characteristics of incandescent, fluorescent and LED lamps the article misleads the reader.  While fluorescent lamps contain small amounts of mercury and when disposed of in a landfill will release some mercury, LED lamps are free of mercury.

The article attempts to sum up by stating: “Finally, electronic bulbs–especially fluorescents–require a lot of resources to manufacture, and have a long and complex BOM: ICs, passive components, PCB, packaging, and more. It’s easy but misleading to ignore that reality or pretend it is not a factor to consider in total environmental cost.”

The author of the article would better serve his audience if he reported on data such as the recent comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) of incandescent, compact fluorescent (CFL) and LED lamps performed by lighting manufacturer Osram (PDF file)and summarized here.

The Osram LCA takes into account all phases of the raw material, manufacturing, operating, disposal and recycling aspects of the three forms of lighting and provides useful insight into the state of lighting technologies today.  The Osram LCA of the three lamp types concludes that LED and CFL lamps are comparable today in their overall environmental impact, and that both CFLs and LEDs are superior to incandescent lamps.  Osram also makes the case that LEDs have the potential for further improvements in performance (~2x) as compared to mature incandescent and CFL lamp technologies.

Incandescent lamps are today inexpensive to purchase.  However the inefficiency and short life of incandescent lamps result in higher operating costs, higher energy consumption and more environmental impact.  Fluorescent and LED solid state lighting today offer longer life and lower energy consumption than incandescents.  As the price of LED lighting falls and the efficiency of LED lamps increases, solid state lighting will become the preferred lighting technology.  The lighting market evolution will see the phase out of incandescent lamps, and replacement of incandescents with more efficient fluorescent and LED lamps.  As LED lighting design and manufacturing develop and LED lighting competes successfully on price and efficiency, LED lighting will eventually displace fluorescents leading to still lower energy consumption and less environmental pollution.

It will likely take longer than my press room reflections permit to properly address this question.  However, my visit to Toshiba’s large display was very revealing of both industry progress and direction.  The photo below sums up the LIGHTFAIR idea of LEDs.

This photo from the Toshiba booth features the wide range of Toshiba A19 (standard Edison base) LED lamps that Toshiba currently produces intriguingly displayed in the form of an A19 LED lamp (complete with the all important ribbed heatsink).

Even more interesting, but with a caveat from the Toshiba representative and his Japanese translating booth brother not to photograph the “prototype device,” was a lamp that was described as a “100 Watt Class” A19 style lamp with 85 lumen/watt efficacy.  This prototype dimmable lamp with a stated output of 1690 lumens, represents a significant achievement in the performance of a A19 replacement style lamp.  This prototype lamp performance should be compared to the 60 W class LED A19 LED lamps rolling out in response to the US Department of Energy’s “L Prize” competition (PDF file) requirements that are summarized as:

• Efficacy of more than 90 lumens per watt, which exceeds the efficiency of all incandescent and most compact fluorescent sources today, which range from 10 to 60 lumens per watt
• Energy consumption of less than 10 watts as compared to a 60 watt incandescent.
• Output of more than 900 lumens, equivalent to a 60 Watt incandescent light bulb
• Lifetime of more than 25,000 hours, which is 25X greater than a typical incandescent bulb
• Color Rendering Index (CRI) greater than 90, which is a high measure of lighting quality
• Color Temperature between 2700 – 3000 Kelvin, which is “warm” white light comparable to that of incandescent sources

However, as I proceeded to interview the Toshiba booth staff, the Toshiba representative turned the interview around and asked me if I thought the replacement lamp market is an important one.  Well, given the wide spread prevalence of LED A19 and other style replacement lamps (including fluorescent-tube-style LED lamps) at LIGHTFAIR 2010, one would likely conclude that the industry believes that replacement lamps are important.

I replied to the Toshiba representative with my view of the current situation.  I pointed out that consumers are currently facing a transition to more efficient lighting but have an investment in existing fixtures (luminaires).  Thus, I told him that while I believe that Edison base and other style replacement lamps will play an important role for the foreseeable future (5, 10 or 15?? years), the real advantage of solid state lighting will arrive when consumers and the lighting industry adopt purpose-designed solid state lighting systems.  Examples of these emerging more optimized lamp systems were also exhibited at LIGHTFAIR.  Two examples were GE’s Infusion™ and Molex’s Helieon™ LED lamp modules.  Integrated solid state lighting solutions such as these will lead to improved lighting cost of ownership propositions in future and will become widespread as these lighting solutions come to market at appropriate initial purchase price points.

Looking forward, consumers and the lighting industry must get from here to there in the years to come.  This is the challenge going forward and as LIGHTFAIR 2010 shows, the lighting industry is rising to the challenge.

WRT Associates will be focusing on the market introduction of new solid state lighting products including light emitting diode (LED), organic LED (OLED) and plasma lighting solutions.  WRT Associates’ background and interests in solid state lighting solutions arise from their longstanding involvement in the LED and OLED industry as well as WRT Associates’ response to our clients’ growing interests in green, sustainable solutions for their products and businesses.

If you will be attending LIGHTFAIR we would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you at LIGHTFAIR and discuss your interests and needs.  If you will not be attending LIGHTFAIR this year, give us a call (+1-970-219-8800) or drop us an email to discuss our findings from the event.  We will be happy to share our insights and analysis in discussing and addressing your needs.

The goals of the forum are to provide insights and identify specific challenges to overcome in order to accelerate the worldwide adoption of energy-efficient solid-state lighting and renewable solar energy sources.

The 1½-day forum will encompass several topics including:

• Solid state lighting, light sources, and energy efficient displays
• Photovoltaics and the role of solar energy
• Green photonics sensing and manufacturing technologies

The speakers for the 3rd Annual Green Photonics Forum have been invited expressly to explore the growing role of photonics in the sustainability portfolio, from market status and strategies to advanced materials and devices for next-generation products. They will share their knowledge and experiences during the regular sessions and plenary meetings, and during lunch, breaks, and an evening networking reception.  Using last year’s event as a guide, this collaborative environment will be ideal for exchanging ideas, meeting potential business partners, and will lead to many productive discussions.  I will see you there.

For example, DisplaySearch has reported that LED backlight costs for liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs are falling rapidly and they forecast that a white edge-lit LED backlight unit (BLU) for a 40 inch diagonal television currently costs about $120 and will approach $50 by the end of 2013 as shown below.

At the same time, some observers are predicting a potential LED shortage as LED manufacturers operate at very high utilization levels.  For example, Jagdish Rebello senior director and principal analyst for wireless research at iSuppli recently stated: “It is clear that demand is outstripping supply.  With LED market growth forecasted to rise by double-digit percentages for at least the next three years—including 2010—a drastic undersupply situation could occur this year unless additional capacity is brought online to meet the increased demand.”  iSuppli goes on to point out that LED solutions are finding increasing usage in the general illumination market, addressing the needs of residential, commercial and industrial lighting applications. The general illumination market for LEDs is still in its infancy, but will become mainstream during the next two years.

As we consider these press reports and analyze the effects of market expansion on the building LED and solid state lighting industries we extract several important insights.

First, manufacturers of LED materials, equipment, chips and lamps will respond to higher market demand.  LED backlights in LCD televisions and monitors can provide higher display performance with local area dimming, and yield considerably lower power consumption and mercury free sets.  Investment in efficient solid state lighting will be driven by several factors in addition to better displays, including the phase out of inefficient incandescent lighting and moves to eliminate mercury in lighting products.  These green factors help make solid state lighting one of the few bright spots in the current slow world economy.

Finally, the wider use of LEDs in both displays and general lighting is resulting in important synergies and market opportunities.  A very interesting trend is the synergy developing between LED display backlights and SSL luminaire design.  Lighting designers have begun to realize that thin edge-lit LED panels similar in configuration to display backlights are also attractive for general illumination use in the drop ceiling grid lighting typically seen in commercial and industrial installations.

The rapid price decline in white LED edge-lit backlight panels forecast by DisplaySearch will make similar (though not identical) panels attractive for ceiling lighting applications.  A few companies including Lunera and Go Lighting Technologies are now offering (see Lunera offering below) thin edge-lit LED panels in sizes including 2×2 and 2×4 feet sizes to replace conventional fluorescent tube troffers.

As drop ceiling LED luminaires fall in price and increase in efficiency, they will likely be widely sold as long-lived cost effective replacements.  The diffuse extended-area light characteristics of edge-lit LED panels will offer the advantages that have been closely identified with the emerging Organic LED (OLED) lighting technology.  The OLED industry will be closely watching the success of diffuse LED lighting since the availability of cost effective LED edge-lit panels with diffuse area light source characteristics will likely put a ceiling on the price of similar form factor OLED luminaires.  This situation will put added price pressure on OLED lighting designers and may force OLED lighting development to focus on other OLED product attributes including extreme thinness and flexibility.  No matter the choice of lamp technology, lighting consumers will benefit from less polluting more efficient lighting in future.

As a result of the sustained development efforts on OLED technology, the market for OLED lighting and displays is poised to grow from $615 million in 2008 to more than $6700 million in 2014, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 44%.  The OLED report will be of interest to individuals and businesses that are seeking to update their knowledge of Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) and answer questions concerning this important emerging technology.

Consumers are eagerly awaiting televisions and mobile phones with brilliant, and low power consumption, OLED displays.  OLED lighting is just now coming to market offering lighting designers and the lighting industry new lighting efficiency and design freedoms.  The OLED report addresses many key questions concerning the OLED industry, markets and technology:

• What barriers must be overcome to bring affordable products with OLED displays to consumers?
• When will these barriers be surmounted?
• When will OLED lighting begin shipping in lighting applications?
• What are these OLED lighting applications?
• What challenges must OLED lighting and displays overcome to reach market and gain market share from incumbent display and lighting products?
• What alternative lighting and display technologies will compete for market share with OLEDs?
• Who are the players in the OLED industry today and what will the competitive landscape look like in 2014?
• What are current OLED display revenues by product application and how will they grow in future?
• When will OLED lighting reach the billion dollar revenue mark?

IntertechPira’s new report, “The Future of OLED Lighting and Displays,” answers these questions about OLEDs and provides the reader with a thorough overview, status and analysis of the OLED industry and markets.

Take a look at a slide presentation or a webinar introducing the new OLED report.  Let us know your thoughts on the evolution of OLED technology and markets.

While organic light emitting diode (OLED) TVs are still a good distance from the mass market, LCD TVs employing LED backlights which are often inaccurately called “LED TVs” are being widely introduced and bring along several important display performance and environmental benefits.  Key LED-backlit LCD TV design and performance attributes are slim design, improved contrast ratio when combined with local area dimming, and substantially reduced power consumption.

Although the press conferences did not emphasize reduced power consumption, slim designs and extreme contrast ratios were underscored by all presenters.  Samsung for example showed their 9000 series TV that at only 0.3 inches thick was claimed to be “pencil thin.”

While fashionable thin designs and excellent display performance will likely catch consumers’ attention on the CES show floor tomorrow, the low power consumption and elimination of mercury-containing CCFL backlights will pay continuing environmental dividends as LED back-lit sets come to dominate the television market.  One of my objectives tomorrow when the CES show opens is to meet with LCD TV manufacturers and ask them to quantify the environmental benefits of their latest products.  It will be interesting to see if the greener characteristics of the new LED backlit LCD TVs are an important selling point for set manufacturers.

The wireless base station can connect up to two audio sources such as an iPod or compact disc player.  The wireless transmitter’s 2.4GHz technology handles up to eight LightSpeakers providing for stereo sound in multiple rooms and the user can set up two separate listening zones. The transmitter or remote will control the sources, zones, lighting levels and volume.  The LED bulb is rated for 40,000 hours of use and Klipsch claims the LightSpeaker reduces lighting expenses by 80 percent, using 10 watts to produce light that’s bright enough to replace up to a 65 watt bulb. (We will try to determine whether actual lumen output of the LightSpeaker is comparable to a 65 watt reflector bulb often used in ceiling cans as we do not expect that the US DOE Caliper program will get around to testing the LightSpeaker in the very near future).  Further adding to the LightSpeaker’s green credentials, Klipsch points out that the LightSpeaker LED bulb contains no mercury as do compact fluorescent lamps.

A basic LightSpeaker system consisting of two LightSpeakers, a transmitter, radio frequency remote, mini jack to RCA plug cable, lenses and trim, retails for $599.  Additional LightSpeakers are available for $249.  Although this may seem pricey, Klispsch makes several points in the graphic below concerning the cost effectiveness of their new product.

Klipsch also point out that installation and set up are quick and easy, and that homeowners can take it with them if they move.

While it’s too early to say if the LightSpeaker will catch on in a big way, it is easy to see that smart companies like Klipsch are exploring products that provide consumers convenient solutions for old problems while offering greener products as well.

In our recent efforts for clients on cleaner, greener displays and solid state lighting, we have found that Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods for determining and making comparisons of energy consumption, carbon footprint and environmental impact are quickly becoming the norm.  We expect that LCA methods and reporting will soon be broadly appreciated by consumers and used as the basis for purchase decisions.

The summary of a recent study released by Osram (Note: PDF) comparing the environmental impact of incandescent (denoted GLS), compact fluorescent (CFL) and light emitting diode (LED) light bulbs (lamps) exemplifies this move to the LCA approach.  Osram is a manufacturer of all three bulb types and thus is in good position to perform such an analysis.

The particular lamp models chosen for the analysis were selected to have comparable lumen output and form factor, and color rendering index > 80.  An important distinction between the lamp types was product lifetime that ranged from 1,000 hour (incandescent), 10,000 hour (CFL), to 25,000 hour (LED).  The aim of the Osram LCA was to analyze the environmental impact of an LED lamp over its entire lifetime – from raw materials, to end of life disposal – and to compare that impact to CFL and incandescent lamps.  The overall life cycle impact was analyzed as illustrated below:

The LCA was divided into five stages – raw material production, manufacturing and assembly, transport, use, and end of life.  The life cycle analysis comprised not only resource consumption and primary energy input, but also six environmental impacts including acidification, eutrophication, greenhouse gas emissions, photochemical ozone creation, resource depletion, and toxicity.

Over the entire life cycle of the lamps, including manufacturing, use, and end of life, the Osram study found that for all three lamp types the use phase dominated the manufacturing phase in terms of energy consumption as shown below.

The other six environmental impacts followed roughly the same pattern as primary energy demand for the three lamp types.  The study concludes that less than 2% of the total energy demand is needed for production of the LED lamp, and that the other six environmental impacts for LED lamps were very similar in degree to those of CFL lamps.  Osram claims that the study “has dismissed any concern that production of LEDs particularly (sic) might be very energy intensive.”

The Osram LCA of the three lamp types points out that LED and CFL lamps are comparable today in their overall environmental impact, and that both CFLs and LEDs are superior to incandescent lamps.  Osram also makes the case that LEDs have the potential for further improvements in performance (~2x) as compared to mature incandescent and CFL lamp technologies.  Although proper recycling of lamps was discussed in the summary of the Osram LCA, the toxicity of the mercury (Hg) content of CFL lamps and of mercury releases from coal-fired electricity consumed during all lamp manufacturing and use were not explicitly mentioned in the summary of the Osram LCA.

Taking the results of the Osram LCA at face value, we conclude that efforts in various countries to ban incandescent lamps may indeed lead to significant environmental benefits.  While some lighting consumers still complain of deficiencies in CFL lamps, they clearly yield energy savings that will pay for the somewhat increased cost of CFL lamps.

What is not yet as clear are the economic benefits of LED lighting to the broad range of lighting consumers.  A check on the web reveals that the Osram Parathom 8 W lamp sells for $54.  This is a high cost for lighting consumers to pay for a lamp rated to last 2.5x as long (25,000 hours) as a comparable CFL lamp and having a comparable environmental impact.  In their LCA, Osram points out that future improvements in LED lamp luminous efficacy of perhaps 2x are to be expected.  We also hope to see price reductions that will make LED lighting still more attractive as manufacturing technology improves.

With LED lamp lifetime of 25,000 hours today and perhaps 50,000 hours or more in future, consumers may think differently when purchasing light bulbs.  If LED lamp prices stay relatively high but LED lamps offer long term energy savings that offset their cost, consumers may feel they are making an investment in their future when buying bulbs.  However with high-priced, long-lived bulbs new business models may emerge.  Consumers may wish to trade in used lamps with say 25,000 hours of life remaining.  Or hand down long lived lighting to their descendants.  Perhaps a key upside to the adoption of greener and more energy efficient solid state lighting will emerge as consumers pass down their light bulbs to successive generations that live on a cleaner, sustainable earth.

Now that we have a number of OLED lamps of various shapes and sizes, it will be interesting to see if lighting designers respond with creative yet saleable OLED lighting fixtures.

OSRAM have set out their case for OLED lighting in an interesting slide presentation (Note: PDF).  Included in their presentation are several OLED lighting fixture designs (examples below) that were entries in the 2009 PPML OLED design contest.  The PPML OLED design contest provides a useful glimpse of designers’ ideas on applying OLED lighting.  OSRAM’s presentation includes a slide describing their market development outlook for the OLED market for high end to high volume applications from 2009 through 2016 and beyond.  And this is where it gets interesting.

OLED lighting research and development have been ongoing in Europe, the US, and Asia since early in the present decade.  European lighting firms Philips and OSRAM are working in government sponsored consortia with European universities and supply chain participants (BASF, Merck, Applied Materials, Novaled and others) to commercialize OLED lighting and reach mass production scale.  Corresponding efforts have been ongoing in the US under the auspices of the US Department of Energy’s Solid State Lighting Program.  Japan has a number of firms conducting OLED lighting materials and device development with companies including Lumiotec and Konica Minolta planning to begin mass production of OLED lamps in 2010 and later.  Until recently, the South Korea OLED display leaders Samsung and LG have not appeared to be addressing the OLED lighting market.

This situation is changing.  Samsung Mobile Display in 2009 has begun showing lighting prototypes as shown in the photo below (left) from the May 2009 SID conference.  Moreover, LG Chem has also begun to show OLED lighting panel prototypes (below right) and is reported to have plans to begin OLED lighting mass production in 2010 or 2011.

The competitive landscape for OLED lighting is beginning to take shape.  Multiple European and Asian firms are taking a firmer position on OLED lighting mass production.  The US DOE program has identified the manufacturing issues for OLED lighting mass production in its September 2009 Solid State Lighting Manufacturing Roadmap.

Although some large US headquartered companies including Kodak and GE have substantial OLED lighting related R&D programs, only GE has stated an intention to enter OLED lighting manufacturing.  Looking forward, we see a bright future for efficient solid state lighting.  And we will be looking to the above mentioned industry leaders and their supply chain partners for further progress toward mass production of OLED lighting.