Soraa’s LED MR16 Lamps Receive Energy Star Label

Soraa announced that eight of their most popular MR16 products have been recognized with the ENERGY STAR qualification from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the first full-visible-spectrum LEDs to attain this qualification. The ENERGY STAR label certifies that Soraa’s MR16 products have met the stringent energy efficiency standards and performance criteria established by the EPA.

Soraa products already qualify for a wide range of rebate programs based on their superior color rendering and energy efficiency. With the ENERGY STAR label, Soraa’s LED lamps now qualify for additional utility rebate programs nationwide.

“The superior performance of our GaN on GaN™ LED technology enables products that are not only highly energy efficient, but also produce beautiful full-visible-spectrum light, making them the simply perfect choice for illuminating any environment,” said George Stringer, Senior VP of USA Sales at Soraa. “We are very pleased to see our first MR16 products receive the ENERGY STAR label, but this is only the beginning of an exciting year for Soraa. Stay tuned as we roll out our full portfolio of energy efficient, full-visible-spectrum products through the rest of 2014.”

All Soraa LED lamps feature violet emission with 3-phosphors that enable benefits such as VP3 (Violet 3-Phosphor) Natural White and VP3 Vivid Color which reveal the magic of whiteness and colors in every environment, and Point Source Optics for beautiful, uniform beams of high intensity. Now, Soraa’s Simply PerfectTM Light comes with the ENERGY STAR stamp of approval.

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LED/Fluorescent Tipping Point Has Arrived

Energy-efficient lighting industry professionals expect commercial and industrial LED installations to eclipse those using fluorescents for the first time in 2014.

That's one of the results of a state of the lighting industry survey distributed to 5,000 professionals by Precision-Paragon (P-2), a maker of commercial and industrial energy-efficient lighting, now part of Hubbell Lighting.

Figure 1

Participants were asked, "What is the predominant light source you expect to install in your relighting

projects in the coming years?"

(Source: P-2)

Last year, 26% of the survey participants said they would use LEDs in their relighting projects. In fact, retrospectively, LEDs made up 37% of the fixtures installed in 2013. This year, for the first time, more respondents are looking forward to LED installs than fluorescent ones, by a margin of 49% to 46% (see Figure 1).

The industry professionals were upbeat, with 82% saying they expect modest or substantial growth in their businesses in 2014 (see Figure 2). The majority of businesses have experienced growth in each of the four years in which the survey has been conducted.

Perspective

It is easy to see why P-2 wants to collect the kind of data its survey produces.

Figure 2

Participants were asked, "What do you expect from the overall market for energy-efficient relighting projects in 2014, compared to 2013?"

(Source: P-2)

The company has been in business since 1992, and today it operates nationwide and sells a range of lighting products: LED, fluorescent, induction, and HID. It favors fluorescent as "frequently the best commercial and industrial lighting solution," but it says it will always work with customers to find the right solution for each situation. The survey data can act as a rough guide to the balance of its own future business.

P-2 says it's in the business of energy-efficient lighting. Its customers -- building contractors, facilities managers, and lighting specifiers -- would probably also describe their own roles with respect to lighting in similar terms. Who isn't concerned about energy efficiency these days? So, despite the apparent narrowing of the sample, the survey may in fact be pretty representative of those who undertake commercial lighting retrofits.

It seems that the industry believes LEDs have caught up to fluorescents in these applications.

— Keith Dawson , Editor-in-Chief, All LED Lighting

An OLED Op-Ed

You know how technologies sometimes overlap and coexist, and then the better platform becomes ubiquitous? That's what's happening this year with SSL, as organic LEDs catch up with the more established inorganic kind.

It's my vocation and avocation to chronicle this trend.

I came to be an ardent OLED guy for two reasons. One is an awareness or precognition of what will come to pass (kind of like the guy who took a pass on purchasing a Betamax recorder); the other is an acknowledgment of the "I must have that" factor.

I know that the day of OLED lighting is at hand. I know it because a dozen industry hot-shots are ringing me up or contacting me, looking for these dynamic OLED wares, and I'm not an OLED distributor. The genre's best goods are creating their own consumer demand.

Here are some of the compelling developments we're seeing: much longer lifetimes, more light coming from panels, a growing number of flexible and/or color-tunable panels, new advances in roll-to-roll fabrication, patterning, self-monitoring, and repairing, and even in OLED marketing. OLED fabrication sees a cost reduction with each new production advance. Profit margins improve. An OLED's bill of materials typically shows a single country of origin for all of its components, as opposed to typical SSL where the components hail from all over the globe.

I'm now hearing about OLED fabricators discussing production of a half a million units a month. I can name a half dozen OLED products that are putting out 100 lumens per watt and have a typical CRI of 90. I'm optimistic that these numbers will continue to improve.

There's no question that OLEDs will enjoy a growing profile as elements in the lighting landscape. Their elegance in design and construction are going to be relevant and contemporary for many years to come. Take as an example the wearable segment of electronics: The characteristics of OLEDs make fabricating them into conformable shapes easy and natural.

The expansion in what is possible design-wise is being enabled by designers with the shackles removed. The most remarkable "flatware" is becoming a little more evolved with each passing week.

Natural demographic

The natural demographic for OLDEs is the two younger age brackets. Twenty-somethings want things that they can claim as their own icons of their time. Few teens look at mega-finned SSL wares and covet their clunky look; it's already passé in their eyes.

Now, I do try to be a realist -- OLEDs are hardly a one-size-fits-all solution. There is still a place for those directional, glare-prone LED retrofits. They will be made and sold in healthy numbers. And while the OLED product planners are doing their best, they know that it will be years before they get shelf space at Lowe's.

All part of the realities of being an OLED zealot at this juncture.

The part in the future that will require a little self-restraint will be not telling everybody in 2018, "See, I told you so." A satisfied grin will have to suffice.

Osram Is First Into Mainstream Headlight Market

After debuting in German luxury car brands in Europe several years ago, LEDs are finally entering the mainstream headlight market in the US.

The Ford Motor Company announced that it will be equipping its new line of F-150 light trucks with an LED headlamp, as we reported last month.

Osram and sister organization Sylvania have a long tradition of supplying automotive headlamps. Those old enough to remember the vehicles built in the 1980s and prior may recall that Sylvania produced sealed beams for such cars. More recently, it manufactured halogen and Xenon sources for automobile headlights. Now, Osram Sylvania will be the first to introduce an LED-based headlamp assembly on a mainstream vehicle in the US market.

As with many applications, LEDs offer an opportunity to reduce power consumption and maintenance requirements. The new Osram headlights should last the life of the truck. That's a welcome relief for those of us who have had to replace the light sources in headlight assemblies on older vehicles. I still drive a 1997 Lincoln Continental. I've had to replace each of the two front lamps so far, and I spent several hours on each side. Gone are the days of replacing sealed beams in 15 minutes. Of course I've only replaced my halogen headlamps once, compared to the frequent sealed beam replacements on prior vehicles.

Beyond limitations

Perhaps more significantly, LEDs permit Osram and Ford to leverage the LED's unique characteristics, and depart from the limitations of the traditional bulky light source and reflector combination.

In addition to the obvious benefits of longer life, LEDs have the potential to change the headlight's beam angle and color characteristics. Done properly, these characteristics could be used to improve the lighting system's overall effectiveness: the "human factors" of the design. Indeed, according to LEDs Magazine, Ford claims:

...the LED-based design will outperform traditional headlamps optically. Ford's engineers took advantage of the small size of LED sources to create a unique design that relies on 16 precision surfaces and 80 facets on the lens to spread the light evenly on the roadway.

The article is mute on spectral content, but we can hope the engineers at Ford and Osram took advantage of the latest human factors research. One of the more prominent papers on the subject was Spectral Effects of LED Forward Lighting, prepared by RPI's Lighting Research Center in 2005. That paper concluded that it is possible to spectrally "tune" a forward LED lighting system to improve peripheral vision and address issues such as glare.

I'm looking forward to seeing the new vehicle on the road, and hope it is the beginning of an exciting new advance for the LED into traditional headlights, despite the inherently glacial pace of change in the US market for headlights.

Related posts:

• Solid State Meets Tough Trucks


• LED Headlamps

Global Grow Lights for Agriculture Market 2014-2020

LED grow lights are more powerful and efficient than the older generation high-pressure sodium and metal halide bulb grow lights. They lower the electricity bill and produce less heat. Less heat allows putting the light closer to plants, they do not get burned. The quality of light is better for growing with LED specialized grow lights. LED specialized grow lights offer homogenous light distribution. Light distribution at precisely the right wavelengths is made possible. LED light sources offer light distribution for good photosynthetic response. Vendors are able to stimulate plant growth. Flora series LEDs provide accelerated photosynthesis and energy savings.

A plant factory allows the growing of vegetables indoors all year round using LED lights that minimize power consumption. It is a system that artificially creates the environment necessary for plants to grow by controlling the amount of culture solution, air, and light from light-emitting diodes (LED). Because the amount of light, temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration levels can be optimized without being affected by the weather, the growth rate of vegetables is two to four times faster than those grown in open-air fields, and yields are ten to twenty times higher.

Visible natural light has a spectrum different from grow lights. Visible light is measured by lux or energy. Plant factory grow lights are different. Grow lights provide artificial light used for plant growth. The spectrum of growth lights is tuned to the plant growing task. Plant light has photons from the blue and red (400 and 700 nm) part of the spectrum. This is called growth light with different spectrums good for different parts of the plant growth process.

According to Susan Eustis, lead author of the study, "Plant factories and plant factory appliances use grow lights to automate and control shifts in technology that makes indoor farming possible. The ability to grow food consistently, locally, without pesticides represents a major breakthrough for humanity." Grow lights permit people to grow food in warehouses and in the home, dedicating previously unused space to a purpose and in a manner that is efficient for producing food. Solar energy makes this possible.

LED grow light modules markets at $395 million in 2013 are anticipated to reach $3.6 billion by 2020. Rapid growth is anticipated to come in part from home and restaurant market segments as people, particularly affluent people, become more health conscious and try to avoid the deleterious effects of pesticides in their food.

Lunera introduces direct LED replacement for MH bulbs

Lunera Lighting has introduced the Susan Lamp family, part of its BallastLED lamp product portfolio. These products can operate directly from existing ballasts, allowing plug-and-play LED adoption in high- and low-bay industrial applications. The Ballast LED Susan lamps specifically target the replacement of 400W, 250W, and 175W metal halide (MH) bulbs. Two versions are offered: The Susan Pro is designed to meet higher lumen output needs and reduces energy usage by over 60% relative to MH. The Susan Junior targets lower lumen output requirements and saves 70-90% relative to MH. For 400W replacements, the 167W Pro model delivers 15,000 lm and the 102W Junior model delivers 10,000 lm. The MH replacements are 4000K CCT lamps with a 70 CRI. Both have screw bases and are rated for 50,000 hours.

Using Nanoparticles to Simulate Skylight

A team led by an Italian physics professor has developed an indoor "skylight" that mimics sunlight, blue sky, or cloudy sky more faithfully than has been achieved before.

Paolo Di Trapani, a professor and physicist at the University of Insubria in Como, Italy, worked on an EU-funded research project called CoeLux through 2011 and 2012. The result is embodied in the startup CoeLux Srl, which will be commercializing the sunlight-simulating technology.

The CoeLux lighting system consists of white LEDs that reproduce the sunlight spectrum; a polymer optical system designed to produce "a sensation of distance between the sky and the sun"; and titanium dioxide nanoparticles that, in just a few millimeters, mimic the Rayleigh scattering process that occurs in the Earth's atmosphere.

Different compositions of the nanoparticles produce the effects of direct sunlight, blue sky, cloudy sky, twilight, etc. In a version of the technology that mimics the sun in a blue sky, two different sizes of nanoparticles are clustered in different sections of the plastic; they separate white light into blue-dominant wavelengths and a bright spot of sunlike yellowish light.

The images that appear on the CoeLux website, one of which is reproduced above, look like computer-generated renderings, but we are assured they are un-retouched photographs.

Prototype

A prototype CoeLux skylight, 1.8 m long and 85 cm wide, was shown at Light + Building in Frankfurt, Germany, earlier this month. It took one of the slots in Lux Review's list of 10 hottest products at the show.

CoeLux Srl will be selling three models of the skylight, dubbed 60, 45, and 30. The names seem to represent the angle of the light produced; they also correspond to tropical, Mediterranean, and Nordic light, respectively.

Applications

The applications for such light seem to be wide open: underground spaces such as mass transit; rooms in permanently smoggy cities; restaurant patios; shady apartments; research stations in Arctic or Antarctic regions; help for sufferers of Seasonal Affective Disorder.

None of the descriptions I found talked about the photometrics, spectrum, illumination levels, or anything else quantitative. I'm sure the researchers and the commercial entity have these details, but they are talking now in much more expansive (and fuzzy) terms about the possibilities for CoeLux.

I can't say that I blame them; the technology does look like something quite new. But I will be glad when samples get into the hands of those who can report in detail on their characteristics for the rest of us.

— Keith Dawson , Editor-in-Chief, All LED Lighting