Final Report Lot 9: Public street lighting - Amper

manufacturers have dominated the international lamp market: Philips, based in the Netherlands;
OSRAM, based in Germany; and General Electric, based in the United States. Sylvania is
another large multinational lamp manufacturer whose North American operations were merged
with OSRAM’s in the 1990s but is a separately owned brand elsewhere. While these companies
have a strong presence in almost all global markets their strength in any one sector or region
varies appreciably. (IEA Light’s Labour’s Lost, 2006).
European lamp manufacturers are grouped in the ELC (The European Lamp Companies
Federation), they have 8 members and claim 95 % of the total European lamp production.
Ballast market
Most of the large lamp manufacturers also sell ballast. There is also a large group of
manufacturers that only produces ballast ranging from SMEs to large companies.
For street lighting the market was dominated up till now by ferromagnetic ballasts, but there is
a new trend to introduce electronic ballast. Large and small companies are introducing this
technology. Also voltage stabilisers are sold that can control the lamp power with
ferromagnetic ballast. They are installed at the distribution transformer. Some companies might
experience/suffer severe competition if electronic ballast technology takes over the old
ferromagnetic ballast technology because other production lines and technological
competences are needed. The switch of ferromagnetic to electronic ballast will also affect the
copper and silicon steel industry because lower volumes of this material are needed in this
technology. In general more copper or magnetic material is good for the energy efficiency in
any technology because of lower copper and magnetic losses but a switch from technology can
cause a decrease of copper use with a status quo or even increase of energy efficiency.
Luminaire market
There is a large import of lighting products from China (IEA Light’s Labour’s Lost, 2006) but it
is unlikely that they are imported for public street lighting applications (no dealers of these
products in the EU-25 could be found or are known).
The number of street lighting luminaire manufacturers is limited because they must fulfil the
high demanding technical specifications from public tenders which cause a high development
cost.
2.3.3 Duration of redesign cycle of the EuP
The duration of the redesign cycle for a street lighting product can range from several months to
many years. A new technology for light production can need tens of years from first idea to
functioning technology and working prototype. New lamps and new ballasts based on the same
or similar existing basic technology can need redesign cycles up to several years, mainly
depending on the needed long term reliability testing cycle. A simple modification in luminaire
design can sometimes be done in months. Totally new luminaire designs changing all
functional and optical parameters can require a design cycle from 6 months up to two years.
2.3.4 Latest consumer tests
The Belgian federation of network operators for electricity and gas (Synergrid) has a type street
lighting luminaire procurement specification called 'Prescriptions relatives à la fourniture
d’appareils d’éclairage public’ (Synergrid, 2004 for download at www.synergrid.be).
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