Welcome to "High Lights from the Heartland". A little humor plus news and observations on the LED / Solid State Lighting markets for your enjoyment. Feel free to share this with your friends!
A little humor:
An optometrist was instructing a new employee on how to charge a customer. “As you are fitting their glasses, if they ask how much they will cost, you say ‘$150.’ “If their eyes don’t flutter, say, ‘For the frames, the lenses will be $100.’ “If their eyes still don’t flutter, you add, ‘Each.’”
News & observations on the LED / Solid State Lighting markets:
Opinion:
Doubt the conventional wisdom unless you can verify it with reason and experiment. - Steve Albini
Conventional wisdom of the ages: The world is flat, the earth is the center of the universe and no one will buy $70 LED light bulbs…
I was on a flight recently and the guy seating next to me was one of those very talkative fellows. Turns out he was ex military and now works as a weapons consultant but more importantly for me, he was also an early adaptor of LED lighting. He had recently purchased several high end LED light bulbs at a big box DIY retailer. How did he know about LED lighting? Turns out that his weapons background also included military flashlights and those high end units had already been converted to LEDs. His positive experience with LEDs in his work gave him the confidence to buy several of the new $70 LED retro-fit lamps for his kitchen. While he liked them overall, his wife was somewhat disappointment in the limited beam angle and the lack of a uniform fall off from the center of the beam to the outer edges, which is what she had come to expect from standard halogen PAR lamps. Would he buy them again? Yes, but only for specific “difficult to re-lamp” fixtures.
This got me to thinking about the other local / personal inputs I was getting on LED lighting and lamps… My local Wal-Mart once again completely sold out of LED Christmas lights before Christmas. My next door neighbor (he knows what I do for a living and he is still willing to talk to me) said that he would most likely buy a $50 LED retrofit lamp for at least one “difficult to relamp” fixture in his home (he is semi-retired and works part time at a big box DIY retailer). Sharp announced at CES that they have already produced over 1 million A19 LED lamps for the Japanese market at ~ 4,000 yen (~$45) each since this product launched in June 2009.
Is there pent up demand for LED retrofit lamps and fixtures at the consumer level? I believe that all of the signs are there… but the consumer’s first real LED lighting “experience” needs to build their confidence in using LED Lighting products. This confidence in the product and its performance will determine if they will buy more or hold off indefinitely, should it prove to be significantly lacking. The US-DOE Energy Star for SSL programs will help build this confidence but these are not mandated programs and anyone can still make anything with any type of LEDs and try to sell it into the US market. Hopefully we will see a shift from a market that currently has a track record of 97% poor / junk LED lighting products towards one that offers high quality products that utilize the US-DOE Energy Star performance specifications as their goal. Stay tuned, 2010 will be a significant year for LED Lamps.
Speaking of the US-DOE, they announced $37 million in funding for several OLED, LED and phosphor programs this month as well (http://www.energy.gov/news2009/documents2009/SSL_Selections_011510.pdf). The interesting thing here is that the winners of these awards were already in the process of developing these products or process innovations. Hopefully this money will accelerate these efforts and allow us to realize the next generation of SSL solutions faster than what the normal market development cycle would allow.
News:
A Boost for LED Lighting Development - The government is awarding $37 million for more research into LED lighting development. As part of the government’s aggressive push for more energy efficient lighting options, the Department of Energy announced Friday it had awarded more than $37 million in stimulus funds for research and development projects that will help advance the market for products that use light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. A significant portion of the 17 projects selected to receive money were proposed by well-known lighting companies, including General Electric, Osram Sylvania, Philips and Cree. The awardees have promised to pony up an additional $28.5 million in private-industry matching funds for the projects, and to spend the money in the United States. According to the department, the focus on manufacturing is part of a new initiative to accelerate adoption of LEDs by improving quality and cost – while also encouraging production in the United States. A considerable amount of LED manufacturing occurs in Asia, according to the department’s solid-state lighting research and development plan. The plan states that developing advanced automation methods could improve product consistency, reduce labor content and potentially make domestic production “a more attractive option than it is today.” http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/a-boost-for-led-lighting-development/
Sharp To Enter LED Lighting Market - Sharp said it will enter the LED lighting market for the first time with energy efficient products targeting high end uses. Despite being a newcomer to the market, Sharp was able to take 60 percent share of the LED lighting market in Japan, where companies including Panasonic, Toshiba and Hitachi have been working on lighting for years, he said. "Our plan is to launch an LED lighting business to supply the United States and Europe by the end of this year," said Sharp Electronics' global president and COO Mikio Katayama. He acknowledged that breaking into the U.S. lighting market presents a significant challenge, but Sharp's LED technologies have very high performance levels. The consumer electronics and solar cell manufacturer’s move is an obvious complement to its LCD television business, where LED backlit LCD sets are a growing share of the market. Large production volumes should enable Sharp to drive down manufacturing costs in both product lines overtime. The company declined to release its expected pricing or to provide details about the products and bulbs it hopes to sell. It anticipates launching the products in March, with its first bulbs boasting 80 percent greater energy efficient than compact fluorescents. They will target the commercial market. Overtime, Sharp expects to address indoor and outdoor uses in both commercial and residential applications. It even plans solar powered LED lights. http://techpulse360.com/2010/01/07/sharp-to-enter-led-lighting-market/ and http://www.twice.com/article/443349-Sharp_s_Katayama_Looks_To_Reclaim_Lost_Market_Share.php
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