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Previous Page | Contents | Zoom in | Zoom out | Front Cover | Search Issue | Next PageABE FMaGSlast wordLighting market presents numerousopportunities for LED manufacturersThe prospects are good for strong growth in certain lighting sectors, saysBERNHARD STAPP, vice president, solid state lighting, OSRAM OPTO SEMICONDUCTORS.Within the general illuminationmarket for LED lighting, OsramOpto Semiconductors sees threemain areas for growth in the shorter term.The first of these is outdoor lighting, includingstreets, roadways, parking lots and tunnels;the second is professional indoor lighting,including offices and retail; and thethird is LED retrofits.Looking further ahead, residential lightingwill clearly become a major market. Thisis connected to building and design cycles,and the buying decision is based much moreon an emotional response, providing whatthe customer actually likes, for examplesparkling light and vivid colors. This contrastswith the current growth markets,where there is usually some form of milestoneor performance criteria that need tobe met, for example energy-efficiency targetsor specific light distribution patterns.For outdoor applications, the abilityto provide cool white LEDs with a performancelevel of ~100 lm/W has createda sweet spot that is now being exploited.There is a great deal of momentum, particularlyin Asia, where a huge amount of newinfrastructure is being installed. Anotherfactor is that many Asian countries arecomfortable with cool-white light, whereefficiency is best. We have been involved ina number of trial street-lighting installations,perhaps 20 to 30 poles at a time. Nowthis is becoming a volume business. Lifecyclecost calculations are the overriding factor,and the total cost of ownership must bebelow five years.In tunnel lighting applications, LEDs providelong lifetime and low maintenance, aswell as much better color rendering, whichis very important in emergency situations.For example, after an accident, it would bevery important to tell whether a spilt liquidwas blood or fuel.For professional lighting, a major factor isdirectionality — the ability to put the lightwhere it is required, for example to illuminatea desk or work surface. LEDs eliminatereflector designs, and officelighting power densities canbe cut in half. Success requiresprofessional fixtures that arebuilt from scratch, in order totake advantage of the propertiesof LEDs. It’s possible toachieve 60 lm/W at the systemlevel, and this compares verywell to existing technologies.Studies need to be madeinto human acceptance ofLED lighting in professionalenvironments — looking for example at theeffect of different illuminance levels in differentareas — and results need to be incorporatedinto standards. In modern building,LED lighting is likely to be part of an overallsolution that includes adaptive lighting anddaylight control.Project and customer feedbackWe are at the stage where LEDs have beenincorporated into fixtures that have beendeployed in reference projects, and we arenow receiving feedback from these projects.With each project, the argument for LEDsbecomes stronger.The LED retrofit market is clearly veryimportant, although such applicationsdon’t harvest the full potential of LED capabilitiesand performance. Current LED retrofitsstruggle with price and performanceissues; it’s possible to have good performanceor low cost, but usually you can’t find bothtogether.In terms of performance, color quality isa top priority for our company, and we areworking on areas such as color-conversion(phosphor) technology andtailoring the spectral output,as well as binning andconsistency. As a semiconductormanufacturer, ourcompany benefits from economiesof scale, so that as thevolume grows there is scopefor price reduction. Highervolume also makes it easierfor us to deal with customrequirements, for examplespecific binning requests.These issues currently add a burden to ouroverall costs.LED lighting is characterized by low lifecyclecosts, and the potential for significantenergy savings, but with higher initial costs.One of our jobs is to convince stakeholders,such as politicians, architects, light planners,and municipalities, of the value of LEDillumination. They are definitely becomingmore receptive, but they need to see referenceprojects.Some street lighting projects have been inplace for two or three years, so these are providingresults and data, but when these wereinstalled, the efficiency of the LEDs was typicallyhalf of the values today.LED technology continues to » page 4952 APRIL 2009 LEDsmagazine.comPrevious Page | Contents | Zoom in | Zoom out | Front Cover | Search Issue | Next PageABE FMaGS