The US law makers try to find a common ground for a new spending bill. Many strings are attached to these bills, but one of them is to stop the ban of the incandescent bulb, which was some time ago decided. That is a sad development and step in the wrong direction.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/16/congress-overturns-incandescent-light-bulb-ban/

That is exciting R&D news. In 1970 the physicist Moore predicted the dynamical Casimir effect meaning “if the virtual photons are allowed to bounce off a mirror that is moving at a speed that is almost as high as the speed of light … getting photons to leave their virtual state and become real photons”.

Two scientist at Chalmers University were able to create such system and replicate the light effect from the vacuum.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-scientists-vacuum.html

The US Department of Energy has announced up to $10 million in its third round of funding for manufacturing R&D projects that should help to drive down the cost and improve the fabrication of LED and OLED lighting products.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced the availability of up to $10 million in funding for solid-state lighting (SSL) technologies. The DOE will invest in projects to accelerate manufacturing research and development related to SSL technologies – including LEDs and organic LEDs.The DOE will select between two and four projects that together will receive up to $10 million, and will focus on achieving significant cost reductions through improvements in manufacturing equipment, processes, or monitoring techniques. This is the third round of funding directed toward the manufacturing R&D program area. To date, the DOE manufacturing R&D program has been supported with $28.2 million in federal funding and has leveraged $36.8 million in funding from the private sector. The DOE will accept applications through December 15, 2011. There are four topic areas of interest for this funding opportunity, including:   Luminaire/module manufacturing Test and inspection equipment OLED deposition equipment OLED materials manufacturing Selected projects will address the technical challenges that must be overcome before SSL can compete with existing lighting on a first-cost basis. However, the funding opportunity announcementsays that improvements to cost-influencing metrics through the proposed approach shall not come at the expense of product performance metrics such as efficacy or color quality.

Several years ago Department of Energy (DoE) came up with the idea to create a program to help accelerate LED lighting adaption. The idea was to offer a big winning price ticket of $10Mil. US for key lighting replacement products – the so called L-Prize.

Philips just was announced the first winner of the 60W equivalent replacement LED bulb type. DoE tested for 18 months the submitted LED bulb in all thinkable ways and determined that Philips is the first one reaching the requirements and won the price.

http://www.lightingprize.org/philips-winner.stm

A good written article about all the facets of the lighting industry including some cost analysis. Two things I found missing.

One is the LEP (Light Emitting Plasma), which is a also a very promising lighting technology, but not often covered in the media.

Another point I think crucial for LED is the possible control capability compared to fluorescent technology. With smart detection and bi or tri-level light output settings for LED light solutions at the current 100lm/W show savings at e.g parking is up to 60% alone.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/07/the-future-of-lighting.ars

US government adds new laws to reduce the energy wasted with old technologies like the incandescent bulbs. Many states like in California also have new laws sometimes even more stringent as the federal law to accelerate that process. Everybody tells me Texas is different. Here is a proof. The governor of Texas just signed a law in place Bill 2510 allowing to pass around the Federal Light Bulb Law.
Texas is different!

Details on Bill on Physorg

Signature News

The crucial point for OLED to be successful is to bring up the efficacy to a level it can start to compete with current newer technologies, e.g. high bright LED, plasma, induction lights and other more efficient light sources.

There are no detailed information on Osram’s OLED news and what made the 40% efficacy improvement, but it is good to see that OLED research is closing the gaps towards the existing light sources.

ARTICLE

VantagePoint’s CEO Alan Salzman a $5Bil VC fund contributed some valid points to upcoming price drop in the LED lighting world.

There had been massive invest into the semiconductor build process for LED particular in Korea, Japan as well as in Tawain and China. These production capabilities start to come online more and more and we should see an accelerated price drop on the LED part.

Although I don’t think the reduced pricing on the LED products will not happen that fast. The price drop for LED product is all related to volume production similar as any other electronic product. Even if we were theoretically able to switch sells today to lets say 100 million units we would not see the price drop from the current $20-$40 per bulb down to $5. A $10 price tag will not open the high million sells needed as customers compare these sources to other existing products.

In the past, when the LED bulb was at this high price range the LED semiconductor itself was a 60% cost of the bill of material. That has already changed in the last years down to 30%-40% depending on product type. Lets say the LED part plummet to 1/10 of the price the whole system price has to follow as well. But the other elements of an LED bulb like housing, electronics, phosphor, optics are not falling that rapid on pricing nor will really high volume compensate to reach a $5 pricing.

I know it is not correct to compare a more energy saving LED bulb to a CFL as you save $7 operating cost per year, but the majority of customers will do. They look at the wallet when they buy a bulb, which either costs <$2.5 vs $10! 
A key element to get the process going are the electric utility provider. They have the leverage by using incentive programs like rebates. How hard are they going to push for it?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-15/led-lighting-prices-to-plummet-by-2015-vantagepoint-ceo-says.html

I saw this product from Rainer & Tobias Kyburz’s KARTONKLUNKER offering a cardboard chandelier. It packs flat to ship and can be easily set up without the use of screws or glue. The lamp comes complete with wiring and six bulb sockets . Pretty cool idea.
What do you think?

USA Today had an article on LED bulbs driven out of one of the biggest lighting events going on right now -LightFair Trade Show.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2011-05-17-LED-lighting_n.htm

The article written by Peter Svensson is composed in a very easy and understandable way and talks about the march of the LED bulb towards the 100W bulb replacement. The interesting conclusion in the last sentence summarizes it all “What’s really needed, he said, is a new approach to lighting — new fixtures and lamps that spread out the LEDs, avoiding the heat problem.”

That is exactly what we are working on with our new flat thin planar LED surface lighting solution. We soon we will be able to show more details on our first generation product, but what I can say is that the lighting quality with a very high CRI is stunning. Stay tuned.