Zoinks! Its me Dr. Z, pharoah of the fluorescent and loony for light bulbs. Here is a great article just published in the Miami Herald that discusses some of the merits of LED lighting. I have posted some articles like this in the past but this one brings up some nice points as to what LED lighting means to you and me. Listen Learn and Read On!
Q: How many LED engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Why on Earth would you ever need to change a light bulb?
While LED (light-emitting diode) costs are still high, this type of lighting is extremely long-lasting. And as prices come down, its efficiency could lead to huge energy savings.
The first consumer LED products lit up in the 1970s, with red light numbers on pocket calculators and push-button displays on big, geeky Pulsar watches. Then came those centered, high-mounted brake lights in the rear windows of cars. Now LEDs are found in everything from traffic lights to operating rooms to greenhouses.
An LED is a device that produces light when an electrical current flows through it. The color it emits depends on the materials used to make the diode.
“It won’t be long before LED lighting technology has a space on your desk, has a space on your ceiling, certainly has a space on your car,” says Russell Dupuis, an electro-optics professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dupuis was awarded the 2002 National Medal of Technology for his work on LEDs.
“Most cars today have a whole lot of LED, certainly the instrument cluster,” he says.
And some cities are also investing in LED for their roads. Dupuis says LED traffic signals would pay for themselves in about three months because of energy savings. And how long do they last? “Until somebody knocks the pole down!” he laughs.
Here are some numbers from the U.S. Department of Energy comparing lifetimes of LEDs to traditional lighting:
– Incandescent bulbs (750-2,000 hours): These bulbs haven’t changed much in 120-plus years; they give off 80-percent heat and only 20-percent light.
– Compact fluorescent bulbs (8,000-10,000 hours): CFLs are more efficient than incandescent, but do contain small amounts of mercury.
– High-power white LEDs (35,000-50,000 hours): The Department of Energy estimates a quarter of the electricity in the United States is used for lighting, costing $50 billion per year. The agency says new technology could reduce lighting energy use by 50 percent.
For some big companies, the transition already makes sense. “Walmart decided to replace the lighting in all of its refrigerated cases with LED lights,” Dupuis says. “Every store is going to save enough in six months to pay for this change.”
There’s also a niche for special lighting needs. Some surgical teams are using LED headlamps and operating-room lighting. LEDs also light up the words of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence at the Jefferson Memorial. And at the British Museum they illuminate the Beatles’ “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” uniforms so the fabric doesn’t decay.
OLEDs, or organic light-emitting diodes, have other intriguing potential. They can be created on paper-thin plastics, and made into wallpaper, window blinds, even clothing.
But it will be several years before consumers can pick up a pack of LEDs at the hardware store. “Designing lights with LED has inherent challenges,” says Michelle Murray, a spokeswoman for LED lighting manufacturer Cree Inc.
Those challenges prompted the Department of Energy to launch the L-Prize, a competition offering millions in cash prizes for the creation of a “high-quality, high-efficiency solid-state lighting products to replace the common light bulb.”
The Department of Energy admits major consumer confusion when it first started promoting the efficiency of compact fluorescent lights. It says the United States cannot afford to squander the enormous energy-saving potential of LEDs, so it wants to make sure the products are ready for prime time when they do hit the market.
The Department of Energy is setting 2012 as a target for large-volume production and replacement of incandescent lighting.
Energy saving eco-bulbs produce at least as much light as old-style bulbs, but you get what you pay for, according to Consumer magazine.
Consumer tested 17 eco-bulbs, including two dimmable bulbs, for brightness and long life, by comparing them with a standard 100W incandescent light bulb and turning them each on and off 6454 times.
It found that most eco-bulbs, or compact fluorescents, produced as much light as the old-style incandescent bulbs and good eco-bulbs produced substantially more.
A good quality eco-bulb would last well despite being turned off and on a lot. In most cases, major brand eco-bulbs lasted longer than cheaper brands.
Old-style incandescent bulbs turn just 5 per cent of electricity into light and the rest into heat, while the new eco bulbs turn about 80 per cent of electricity into light.
Spiral shapes were the best performers of the eco-bulbs, which ranged between 18W and 23W. They ranged in price from $2.93 to $25.92 each.
Dr. Z sings a song. “I’m a little light bulb” for his Mom. Keyboards and drum machine supplied by Kraftwerk influenced musician Hans Wagner (who is perhaps best known for his work with Jazzhorse and Gnome Machine) Dr. Z will be playing at select nightclub in Las Vegas in between the Koko’s Burlesque and John Wackers’ “Elvis Ate My Sandwich” revue, which explores the culinary vision of the king of rock n roll. Fried Peanut Butter and Banana sandwiches anyone?
Get Lit Stay Lit www.zbulbs.com
How long does it take to change a light bulb? Nearly a century and a half, it seems, though a replacement has been around for decades.
In the push for energy efficiency, changing old habits is proving more difficult than developing new technology. In the case of the light bulb, consumers see little reason to switch from energy-draining conventional models to more-efficient alternatives as long as electricity remains cheap.
Thomas Edison unveiled his incandescent bulb in 1879, and since then it has illuminated the world. But it is highly inefficient, generating 90% heat and 10% light. “The only thing worse is a candle flame,” says Terry McGowan, of the American Lighting Association, a trade group.
There is a better bulb. In fact, there are several. The spiral-shaped “compact fluorescent,” around for years, produces the same amount of light as its incandescent ancestor with one-quarter the energy. It lasts for years, provides light in an array of hues, and, by lowering electricity bills, pays for itself in about seven months. And the latest bright idea, the light-emitting diode, costs even more but lasts far longer than compact fluorescents. LED bulbs have been used mostly for consumer electronics and in commercial applications such as traffic lights.
Studies say improving the efficiency of the light bulb is among the easiest ways to start meaningfully curbing fossil-fuel consumption. Lighting accounts for some 20% of residential electricity use in the U.S. — a lot to fritter away as wasted heat. Yet about 80% of all bulbs sold to U.S. consumers are incandescents, which often cost less than 25 cents apiece, about one-tenth the price of a compact fluorescent.
“I buy the cheap ones,” Dallas resident Betty Ferrell said the other day as she reached for a pack of incandescents at a local Wal-Mart store. “They may not be cheap in the long run,” she said, “but they’re cheap for what I have in my purse now.”
In fact, Americans have been so reluctant to buy the new bulbs that the federal government is about to force their hand. A recent law will, in effect, ban incandescent bulbs for most uses by 2014.
MarketWatch’s Steve Gelsi reports from the 2009 Lightfair International conference, where offering more illumination for less power and less money is now the name of the game. He discusses compact florescent lamps, or CFLs, with actor and activist Ed Begley Jr. and light emitting diodes, or LEDs, with Osram Sylvania CEO Charles Jerabek.
But the switch to fluorescents won’t settle consumers’ dilemma about whether to pay now, for a more expensive bulb, or pay later, for more electricity. Consumers still will have the option of buying halogen bulbs, which fall in between incandescents and fluorescents in efficiency and price. And LEDs for household use are starting to show up in stores.
Never before has there been such a flowering of practical energy-saving products, from double-pane windows to front-loading washing machines to hybrid gasoline-and-electric cars. Yet they cost far more to buy than the less-efficient technologies they seek to replace — a big hurdle in places like the U.S., where electricity is such a small component of most household budgets that it rarely plays a role in shopping decisions.
“If energy is dirt cheap, it gets treated like dirt,” says Arthur Rosenfeld, a physicist who headed a team of scientists at the federal government’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in California, that did some of the early development work on compact-fluorescent bulbs. “That’s been the problem.”
Mr. Edison’s incandescent light bulb, introduced the same year as Ivory soap, is relatively simple. Inside the glass bulb sits a wire, or filament. When a switch is flipped, an electric current hits the filament, which heats up and glows.
The fluorescent bulb, launched commercially in the late 1930s, is more refined. It consists of a glass tube containing mercury and coated on the inside with phosphor. Electrified, the mercury vapor causes the phosphor molecules to vibrate, producing light.
The combination of the mercury and the phosphor produces less heat and more light than an incandescent, making it more efficient. Because the bulb has no filament that can break, it lasts longer. Typically, fluorescent light has a blue tinge, compared with incandescent light’s reddish hue.
Fluorescents became popular in offices and factories in the 1940s. But they didn’t catch on in homes. They required specialized fixtures. And Americans, raised on the warm glow of incandescents, found the fluorescent’s sharper light harsh.
“Compact” versions that could be screwed into conventional incandescent sockets arrived after the oil shocks of the 1970s. But they were still too big to fit under many lampshades. The bulbs flickered and hummed. And their price — about $20 apiece — deterred most consumers, especially because oil prices slumped in the 1980s, damping the appeal of energy-saving devices.
By the start of this decade, the fluorescent bulb had progressed to its current squiggly shape. Costs fell as technology improved and production shifted to China. Based on average U.S. electricity prices, by 2005 the bulb paid for itself in less than a year, according to the Department of Energy. Just then, energy prices soared, sparking a big rise in sales.
But sales of compact fluorescents have dropped in the current recession, to 21% of total U.S. consumer light-bulb sales in 2008 from 23% in 2007, according to the DOE.
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In Europe and Japan, where electricity costs more, fluorescent lights are more popular. To improve the bulbs’ appeal to Americans, manufacturers are adjusting their phosphor blends to mimic redder incandescents. Fluorescent light “doesn’t make you look as good,” says Timothy Lesch, a vice president at Osram Sylvania, a big bulb manufacturer. He has compact fluorescent bulbs throughout his house, but not in those rooms where he spends a lot of time. “They’re not in my den,” he says.
As manufacturers continue tweaking, buying a light bulb has become a complicated venture. A Wal-Mart in Plano, Texas, outside Dallas, has nine varieties of bulbs claiming to fulfill the role of a traditional 60-watt incandescent. Some advertise “cool” light; others “soft.” Promised lifetimes range from five years to eight. As for electricity savings, manufacturers claim anywhere from $36 to $56 a bulb.
Stacy Parks, financial manager for a Dallas information-technology company, bought the brightest compact fluorescents she could find to light her front walkway: 42-watt models, akin to blazing 150-watt incandescents. But when she tried out the bulbs, she says, the path “looked like a landing strip.” She eventually replaced the bright lights with dimmer fluorescents.
Most industrial countries, including the U.S., are largely phasing out the incandescent over the next several years. Yet even if that pushes down the bulb’s price further, as industry officials predict, consumers still will have to pay much more for a compact fluorescent than they are accustomed to paying for an incandescent.
And technology marches on. The LED is eclipsing the compact fluorescent as the cutting-edge bulb. Wal-Mart Stores has started selling a consumer LED bulb that uses just seven watts of electricity and claims to last for more than 13 years. It costs around $35 — a daunting price tag for a light bulb. “We’re kind of testing the waters,” says Rand Waddoups, Wal-Mart’s senior director of strategy and sustainability. “This is a behavior change, and that requires some work.”
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL and FELICITY BARRINGER , New York Times
Last update: May 30, 2009 – 8:10 AM
To change the bulbs in the 60-foot-high ceiling lights of Buckingham Palace’s grand stairwell, workers had to erect scaffolding. So when a lighting designer two years ago proposed installing light emitting diodes, or LEDs, an emerging lighting technology, the royal family readily assented.
The new lights, the designer said, would last more than 22 years and enormously reduce energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions — a big plus for Prince Charles, an ardent environmentalist. Since then, the palace has installed the lighting in chandeliers and on the exterior, where illuminating the entire facade now uses less electricity than running an electric teakettle.
The palace is part of a small but fast-growing trend that is redefining the century-old conception of lighting, replacing energy-wasting disposable bulbs with efficient fixtures that are semi-permanent.
Studies suggest that a complete conversion to LEDs could decrease carbon dioxide emissions from electric power use for lighting by up to 50 percent in about 20 years. A recent report by McKinsey & Co. cited conversion to LED lighting as potentially the most cost-effective of a number of simple approaches using existing technology to tackle global warming.
LED lighting was once relegated to basketball scoreboards, cell phone consoles, traffic lights and colored Christmas lights. But as a result of rapid technology developments, it is poised to become a staple on streets and in buildings, as well as in homes and offices. Some American cities, including Ann Arbor, Mich., and Raleigh, N.C., are using the lights to illuminate streets and parking garages, and dozens more are exploring the technology. The lighting adorns some Renaissance hotels, a corridor in the Pentagon and a green building at Stanford.
LEDs are more than twice as efficient as compact fluorescent bulbs, currently the standard for greener lighting. Unlike compact fluorescents, LEDs turn on quickly and are compatible with dimmer switches. And while fluorescent bulbs contain mercury, which requires special disposal, LED bulbs contain no toxic elements and last so long that disposal isn’t an issue.
“It is fit-and-forget-lighting that is essentially there for as long as you live,” said Colin Humphreys, a Cambridge University researcher who works on gallium nitride LED lights.
The switch to LEDs is proceeding far more rapidly than experts had predicted just two years ago. President Obama’s stimulus package, which offers money for “green” infrastructure investment, will accelerate that pace, experts say.
Sales of the lights in new “solid state” fixtures — a $297 million industry in 2007 — are likely to become a near-billion-dollar industry by 2013, said Stephen Montgomery, director of LED projects at Electronicast, a California consultancy.
Still, there remain significant barriers to LEDs. Homeowners may balk at the high initial cost, which lighting experts say currently will take five to 10 years to recoup in electricity savings. An outdoor LED spotlight today costs $100, as opposed to $7 for a regular bulb.
Another issue is that current LEDs provide only “directional light,” not a 360-degree glow.
And in the rush to make cheaper LED lights, poorly manufactured products could erase the technology’s natural advantage, experts warn. LEDs are tiny sandwiches of two different materials that release light as electrons jump from one to the other. The lights must be carefully designed so that heat does not damage them, reducing their lifespan from decades to months.
Yet nearly monthly scientific advances are addressing many of the problems.
“This is a technology on a very fast learning curve,” said Jon Creyts, an author of the McKinsey report, who predicted that the technology could be in widespread use within five years.
Zoinks! Here is an interesting article on how much energy it would take to power a incandescent by bicycle in comparison to a cfl. Guess which one takes more pedal power!
Indiana State Fairgrounds – How much human energy does it take to power a light bulb? Tim ‘Treeboy’ Bush paid a visit to the state fairgrounds to demonstrate renewable energy. To make a comparison between how much energy it takes to light incandescent light bulbs as compared to compact flourescent lamps, or CFL’s, the power energy exerted from a pedaling bicyclist is transformed to energy capable of lighting light bulbs.
“It takes four times the power to light the incandescent verses the CFL,” Eric Burch, Office of Energy Development, said.
While pedaling at a quick pace, the goal was to light four incandescent light bulbs.
“He’s pedaling pretty consistently, too, and you can see that he’s not even going to get all four lit,” Burch said. “If we switch that over to the CFL’s, the same amount of power is getting three of them lit and the fourth one is starting to come on.”
Contrary to the incandescent, the CFL will flicker if there is not a consistent amount of power, like the bursts of power emitted from the bicyclist.
Burch said a very power-hungry, common household appliance is the hair dryer. While the bicyclist pedaled, Burch turned on a small hair dryer and the light bulbs quickly turned off.
“This (hair dryer) is barely running,” Burch said. “This is a 12-volt hair dryer, but it’s probably trying to pull about 500 volts.”
As part of the world’s largest classroom at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, the Normandy Barn houses the Office of Energy Development, which shares its space with the Indiana State Department of Agriculture. Lieutenant Governor Becky Skillman put together the space to serve as a year-round classroom for many topics, including agriculture and energy.
In August, state fair goers will be able to try the same bike out on their own at the Office of Energy Development’s booth. This will give people a chance to learn more about how energy can only be transformed rather than created or destroyed.
gadzooks! As much as I love Compact Fluorescents I must say I will be sad to see incandescents will be banned by 2012 and its looking like many people not only share that sentiment but have becoming quite grumpy about the change. The article below addresses some questions about the ban of incandescent bulbs .
Light bulbs certainly can heat up controversy. After reading last month’s FAQ on the coming phase-out of today’s incandescent light bulbs, many readers wrote to defend the old bulbs or ask about the finer points of the switchover. Here are some of their comments and questions about the transition to more energy-efficient lighting, which Congress light in my oven that withstands the extreme temperatures there. Is a compact fluorescent light bulb safe for use in an oven? How about in the refrigerator or freezer?
No, those swirly, efficient CFL bulbs will be great for most light fixtures, but they can’t withstand extreme hot or cold. However, appliance lamps up to 40 watts are exempt from the new energy law and will not be phased out.
I have incandescent spotlights outside to light up my yard. Fluorescent lights are known to work poorly in the cold. Will CFLs work in subzero conditions?
Outdoor spotlights will still be available as halogen spot or halogen floodlights. These products are on the market today. Halogen bulbs also are becoming more efficient—wasting less energy as heat—than used to be the case.
I have lighting fixtures in my home designed to show the bulb as decoration—like candle, flame-shaped, or clear decorative spheres. Are all these fixtures going to be obsolete?
Decorative lamps with small candelabra bases are exempt from the phase-out up to 60 watts. Decorative lamps with standard or medium-screw bases are exempt up to 40 watts. Large globe lights used in bathroom vanities will still be available.
I have heard that we will not be able to use our existing light sockets with these new bulbs, nor use lampshades, and that we will have to have all light sockets in our homes replaced.
The manufacturers say that CFLs are substantially shorter and smaller than they were just a few years ago. While some light bulbs had difficulty fitting certain lampshades in the past, most CFLs will fit in almost all table lamps today. Consumers are already making the switch. The federal Energy Star program says sales of CFLs, which use 75 percent less energy and last up to 10 times as long as incandescents, doubled in 2007 and now account for 20 percent of the light bulb market.
Banning incandescent light bulbs entirely would be a big mistake. Seldom mentioned is the fact (proved in my home) that CFLs cause interference in TV pictures and AM radio.
Strange, but apparently this used to be true! Some CFLs created “radio frequency interference,” but this is rare today. Manufacturers tell me you can avoid the problem if you choose bulbs with the government’s Energy Star rating, indicating that they’ve met a standard set by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC also requires CFL manufacturers to supply information (on or inside the package) that informs consumers what to do in the event that any interference is encountered (move your light bulb and your AM radio apart from each other).
As a matter of fact, many of the consumers who are worried about light quality and long life should also be sure they are using products that carry the Energy Star. The few CFLs on the market that don’t carry the star don’t meet the minimum government standards.
There are many locations where the extra cost of a fluorescent will never be repaid, such as little-used closets and attics.
The payback period may indeed be so slow as to be imperceptible in these locations. At least you won’t have to crawl up there and replace those bulbs too often. CFLs should last a long time.
Like a lot of problems, there is no “silver bullet” to solve every problem. The idea of banningincandescent bulbs needs to be re-evaluated to produce a more sensible approach.
Ah, but the United States isn’t really banning incandescent bulbs, as Australia recently did. All the major manufacturers—including General Electric, Osram Sylvania, and Philips—emphasize that, very much at their urging, Congress instead set new standards for greater efficiency in lighting. It doesn’t matter what technology the light bulb makers use to get to reach the goals. The practical effect, indeed, will be to phase out most of the incandescent bulbs that we know. But in the coming years, you most likely will see manufacturers come out with next-generation, efficient incandescent bulbs. These may end up being a transitional technology that will not meet the standards in the later years of the phase-out, when light-emitting diodes become more economical, but manufacturers are confident these new standards are workable.
Sure, it’s easy (and fun) to rail against Congress. But the bright side of all those loopholes and compromises is that you will still be able to light your oven, freezer, outdoor walkway, and candelabra fixture with little upheaval, while saving kilowatts with more modern lighting in the rest of your home.
P.S. I included a brief definition of OLEDs at the begining. Thanks to Wikipedia!
An organic light emitting diode (OLED), also light emitting polymer (LEP) and organic electro luminescence (OEL), is any light emitting diode (LED) whose emissiveelectroluminescent layer is composed of a film of organic compounds. The layer usually contains a polymer substance that allows suitable organic compounds to be deposited. They are deposited in rows and columns onto a flat carrier by a simple “printing” process. The resulting matrix of pixels can emit light of different colors.
Such systems can be used in television screens, computer displays, small, portable system screens such as cell phones and PDAs, advertising, information and indication. OLEDs can also be used in light sources for general space illumination, and large-area light-emitting elements. OLEDs typically emit less light per area than inorganic solid-state based LEDs which are usually designed for use as point-light sources.
A significant benefit of OLED displays over traditional liquid crystal displays (LCDs) is that OLEDs do not require a backlight to function. Thus they draw far less power and, when powered from a battery, can operate longer on the same charge. Because there is no need for a backlight, an OLED display can be much thinner than an LCD panel. Degradation of OLED materials has limited their use so far.[1]
The up-and-coming electronics technology known as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) has spent the week in the, yes, spotlight. Earlier this week researchers announced that they had joined OLEDs to a rubbery conductor to make a computer display screen that could be bent, folded, and crumpled. Now, another team has tweaked OLEDs to make ultra-efficient panels that produce a white light similar to that produced by traditional incandescent light bulbs. Study coauthor Karl Leo says some big technical hurdles still need to be overcome, but adds: “I’m pretty convinced that in a few years OLEDs will be a standard in buildings” [BBC News].
Incandescent lighting is being phased out in some parts of the world because it isn’t energy efficient, and it’s being replaced by compact fluorescent bulbs or light-emitting diode (LED) fixtures. But with both fluorescent and LED lighting, the quality of white light produced has always left something to be desired. Fluorescent lighting can make people appear unhealthy because less red light is emitted, while most white LEDs on the market today have a bluish quality, making them appear cold [Technology Review]. In contrast, OLEDs, which are made from organic compounds that emit light when electricity is passed through them, can provide a nice white light, but efficiency problems have held the technology back.
As the researchers explain in a paper in Nature, their modifications boosted OLED’s efficiency past that of traditional lighting sources. Their improved device yielded 90 lumens (a measurement of brightness) per watt of electricity consumed…. This compared to 15 lumens for a conventional incandescent light bulb and between 50 and 70 lumens per watt for modern compact fluorescent light bulbs [AFP]. They produced the efficiency gain with a series of technical adjustments. One trick was to make the outer surfaces of the device from types of glass that have optical properties that more closely match those of the device substrate. Otherwise, much of the emitted light is reflected and either reabsorbed or lost through heat. “In conventional structures, about 80 percent of the light is lost,” [Technology Review], says study coauthor Sebastian Reineke.
But the technology still faces several large obstacles:. Just like previous white OLEDs, the devices degrade within an hour or two, because the polymers that produce the blue part of the light are unstable. However, Professor Leo said that promising first results on stable, phosphorescent blue polymers are starting to emerge. “I’m personally convinced that it may take a few years, but chemists will solve this problem and find materials which are stable enough,” he said [BBC News]. OLEDs are also expensive to produce, but researchers hope that the material can soon be produced in large sheets, making it commercially viable.
Zoinks ! Its me Dr. Z! The Lord of Light and pharoah of fluorescent. I can’t believe it could it be true? Have we found the ultimate light bulb in the LED? I think we may have a way to go before that happens but this NY Times article is certainly promising!
Walk around the floor of Lightfair International, the lighting industry’s annual trade show at the Javits Center in New York last week, and you would be forgiven for thinking that lamps based on light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, had already filled our homes and workplaces.
This lamp from Nexxus Lighting uses less than 8 watts and is said to be as bright as a 75-watt incandescent bulb. Price: $100.
LED bulbs and fixtures dominated nearly every booth on the show floor.
Now all the world has to do is catch up. Most people think of LEDs as the lights blinking from inside electronic devices. They are being used increasingly to light rooms, though few people have ever bought them.
“In the U.S., 78 percent of the public is completely unaware that traditional light bulbs will be phased out in 2012,” said Charles F. Jerabek, president and chief executive of Osram Sylvania, a unit of Siemens. By law, bulbs must be 30 percent more efficient than current incandescent versions beginning that year.
While the current crop of compact fluorescents could do the job, the industry is rallying around LED lamps for many applications. They say LEDs last longer than current bulbs and compact fluorescent ones and their energy consumption could eventually be less than fluorescent lights’. They can also be made in many shapes and sizes, which was evident at the trade show. Unlike compact fluorescents bulbs, they contain no mercury and they work well in cold weather. They provide a more pleasing light than fluorescents.
Manufacturers displayed LEDs incorporated into large warehouse, garage and street-lighting fixtures, flexible light ribbons, and replacements for the halogen reflector lamps used in kitchens and offices. Strips of flexible LEDs from Osram Sylvania put light in places where it could not otherwise fit. Later this year, the company will market tiny LED chandelier lights that use 6 watts instead of the 15 watts typical of an incandescent version. It says they will last 25,000 hours instead of 1,500 for an incandescent bulb. Also this fall, Osram, Lighting Science and Philips will introduce 25,000-hour LED lamps that look like traditional bulbs but use just 8 watts of electricity to produce the same amount of light as a 40-watt bulb.
Much of the industry’s effort is aimed at making LED lamps that emit as much light as a 60- or 75-watt incandescent bulb. Cree, a leading maker of LEDs, showed a new version of its LED ceiling fixture that uses 6.5 watts, compared with 11 watts for last year’s model, to create the light of a standard 65-watt lamp.
Even with the wide range of LED products now available, compact fluorescent bulbs will be the technology of choice for most consumers for years to come. That is a result of LEDs’ high prices — more than $20 for a 40-watt-equivalent bulb — and the difficulty in creating bright bulbs. “The C.F.L. market still has a lot of growth,” said Michael B. Petras Jr., president of GE Lighting, a unit of General Electric. Even so, the company is devoting 50 percent of its research and development money to LED-related technologies.
The advent of long-lasting bulbs means light bulb companies have to shift away from making most of their money selling replacement bulbs. Over the last several years, Philips has remade itself by acquiring several companies that sell lamp fixtures for homes and businesses.
The company expects its LED sales in the United States to increase to $200 million this year from $120 million in 2008, according to Kaj den Daas, president of Philips’s lighting group for the United States.
The industry expects to sell more bulbs at a higher price. “Instead of $1.25 light bulbs, we’ll be selling $10 to $20 systems,” said Mr. Jerabek of Osram Sylvania. He also said today’s larger homes have many more lights than homes 20 years ago. And, as LED energy efficiency improves, he thinks consumers will upgrade their LED fixtures with lower watt versions.
Mr. Jerabek remembers the recent debacle with the introduction of low-price compact fluorescent lamps. Their poor reliability and unnatural light caused widespread dissatisfaction among consumers.
“It will be a huge injustice and setback if we allow the same thing to happen to LEDs,” he said.
Gadzooks! The Government just posted is look for a few good light bulbs.. and the still haven’t found the one with the right stuff. This article from the New York Times details the government’s search for a LED light than can replace your everyday 60 watt incandescent. They have been running this contest for a while but nobody is entering! Are LED manufacturers just too shy?
By Eric A. Taub Last year, the Department of Energy announced the L Prize: a contest to be the first company to create an LED-powered lamp that could replace a standard 60-watt incandescent bulb. The winner would receive cash, recognition, and potentially lucrative government contracts. One year later, no one has stepped up to claim the award. It’s not for lack of trying, said James Brodrick, a Department of Energy official overseeing the government’s LED lighting initiative. But creating an LED lamp that can produce the equivalent of 60 watts of light while using a fraction of the power of a standard bulb is no easy task. Speaking at Lightfair, the lighting industry trade show, Mr. Brodrick told me that five companies have been discussing the contest with him, with at least two pulling out all the stops to win. He expects the first entries to come either this summer or fall. The cash prize — several million dollars based on what the government eventually allocates — is the least important part of the competition. The winner could also get large orders from the U.S. General Services Administration and the Defense Logistics Agency, which is looking for advanced lighting that can work under stressful environments, such as ships at sea. Mr. Brodrick estimates that there are 1.9 billion sockets in the U.S. that currently use 60-watt bulbs, so the potential market could be huge. But before any company can claim the prize, their product will have to undergo rigorous testing. That includes testing about 12 samples for light output, another 200 for expected life, and two to three dozen for their ability to operate under stressful conditions. The company also must be able to manufacture a minimum of 250,000 per year. The Department of Energy is trying to head off the debacle the country initially experienced with the introduction of compact fluorescents, when many consumers found that the first CFLs did not last long and gave off unpleasant light. “This is the Kentucky Derby of lighting,” Mr. Brodrick said, who added that he wouldn’t be surprised if a dark-horse winner emerged from the shadows at the last minute.
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Get Lit, Stay Lit 