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TECHNOLOGY / LED
SOLID STATE SUCCESS
2010 was the year of undeniable SSL success with disruptive innovation everywhere. Geoff Archenhold reports on a momentous period
At this point in lighting history I feel exceptionally privileged to be working amongst the lighting community during what must be one of the most disruptive times seen since core lamp technology turned from gas to electricity more than 150 years ago. 2010 has been one of the most exciting years I have seen in quite a while with new LED technology delivering on the promises of the last few years and exciting prospects of OLED technology coming to market with a different form factor to enable lighting designers to create new ways of delivering light in the home, office and workplace over the next five years.
Despite the backdrop of further global economic gloom, mass protests in Greece, France, Ireland and the UK, looming currency trade wars and much more besides the lighting industry has been a great sector to focus on more positive aspects such as growing awareness of energy efficient lighting, higher quality lighting with improved power spectral density wavelengths, growing markets, advanced controls, entrepreneurial new companies, exciting lighting technologies and above all the adrenaline rush of traditional companies realising they will be dead in the water unless they move quickly to gain a foothold in the new LED world.
One only has to reflect on key moments in 2010 such as the Light and Building exhibition in Frankfurt (I still remember the trek to get back to the UK!) to demonstrate how quickly LED lighting has been adopted by the major, as well as smaller players, in the global lighting market. However it is the announcements that have been made since April that have really caught the imagination of fixture manufacturers and designers. For example, this month we have seen record breaking announcements for high-CRI (>0.9) high efficacy white LEDs and breakthroughs in coloured LED efficacies making the LED industry one of the most exciting sectors to follow in 2011. I believe 2011 will see the first major step towards integrated controls into lighting systems without significant cost to the overall design. By the end of 2011 there will be little extra cost to installing RDM, mains dimmable, DALI, Power Line
Control or indeed Wi-Fi to a complete lighting system and with low-cost 7” to 10” portable touch screen tablets rapidly coming onto the market we will see controls easily integrated onto Apple, Microsoft and Android platforms making the user’s lighting experience completely different to what has gone before.
2011 is going to be very exciting and, from the comments I have had from several leading LED characters, it’s not going to slow down either!
Before we start dreaming about the technology, let’s remind ourselves there are still major drawbacks to the new wild-west LED frontier that the industry needs to refine moving forward including some of the following: 1) Steep technology curve: A major issue for LED fixture manufacturers is that the LED technology is still on a major hockey stick development curve with the main LED manufacturers releasing better improved, more efficient LED emitters on a six month timescale. Fortunately many of these improvements are based on the same LED footprint so there is little need to redesign the system. However this is not always the case. How does an end-user, let alone the fixture manufacturer, decide which LED to opt for and how much stock they should hold as the stock turn is very quick? 2) Too many LED choices: The type, format and power rating of LEDs have become even more taxing as a whole raft of new variants enter the market. This year we have seen high voltage LEDs, further AC LEDs, large die LED, a raft of new LED array all the way up to 60W and beyond as well as LEDs with small forward currents and large forward currents. Until there are common platforms for LED modules then I believe it will be an inefficient LED community requiring new design iterations depending on which LED company provides the best price/performance at the time of design thus requiring a substantial redesign when another LED manufacturer improves on the last one. One has to ask about the Zhaga consortium as that seems to have gone very quiet - perhaps they need to learn from Google, Facebook and other high technology companies about the creation of social marketing media as it works well or perhaps
they want to be the industry’s best kept secret. Who knows?! 3) Not all parts of the LED system are maturing at the same time: LEDs are maturing rapidly and by 2015 tier one LED manufacturers will have reached 90% of the theoretical efficacy limits of white light paving the way for standardisation. The main issue I see today is that other parts of the SSL system are not mature and offer a great variety in outcomes such as flexibility, choice, price, reliability and safety. Such examples include the LED driver (AC/DC, DC/DC), the types of connectors used to interface to the light fixture and the control protocols that need to be defined to take advantage of the new technology. Is DALI, 0-10V, RDM or mains dimmable really going to take advantage of the LED fixtures of the future? 4) Quality and Product Cost: The lighting industry is still working to its old ways of driving down costs to beat the equivalent incumbent lamp technology but it should instead focus on quality of light, usability, functionality, efficiency as well as cost. The commodity market will occur for LEDs when the quality gap closes between China and Taiwan and the tier one manufacturers today - ie; less than three years - so why not focus on longer term sustainable models for the lighting industry which include innovation, quality and branding? Again, the lighting industry should look towards companies such as Apple, they don’t make the cheapest mobile phone but a lot of people own one! 5) Increased lead times: The shortage of electronics components such as capacitors and IC’s has meant that a large number of LED driver companies have pushed out lead times to 12-18 weeks creating shortages. This is expected to continue well into 2011.
Top LED market features of 2010 During 2010 there have been some major LED milestones reached. However the key elements achieved by the industry were the rapid increase in production LEDs efficacy, significant rises in CRI, the dominating role of LED emitter arrays within downlighter type applications and the use of lower power LED emitters for use in LED retrofit T5, T8 and 600mm x 600mm fluorescent
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