Lighting Up To Expectations
Victim of tremendous industry expansion, LEDs still have a way to go before being embraced as the promised alternative. But the future is still looking bright.
Global regulations for long life energy saving technology, low heat emissions, low maintenance, low fire risk, instant on and off, absence of heavy metals and new levels of programmability are advantages making LEDs what Adam Cameron, COO looking after, Etrilum, a China based OEM manufacturer of energy-efficient lighting, calls a “gold rush” industry. Despite already widespread application in offices, shops, hospitals, carparks and street lighting, LED is still waiting for wholesale adoption. This is partly due to inability to cross the upfront vs operational cost chasm and end user reactions to quality and usability as a useful, economic and rational interior and exterior light source,. However, existing markets continue to grow and Optiled, a LED manufacturer, predicts within the next two years focus will shift to high-end and mid-market shopping environments as the measurable results of real operations will show the attractiveness of LED in general lighting applications.
Industry threat – Etrilum
Every industry has its threats. “The biggest threat is probably a new technology (there are a few out there) that is more energy efficient than LEDs, however this technology will also have to go through the long technology adoption process that LEDs are going through now so everybody can probably see it coming” says Cameron.
Cost and quality
Let’s address cost briefly. Marian Lehuta is General Manager, Lasvit (Shanghai) Co., a company that designs, develops and creates original design objects and lighting made of glass, crystal, and other precious materials. He says incandescent bulbs are cheaper and that is what Lasvit normally specify. It’s straight forward. LED manufacturers recognise this inhibitor. Cameron says his company focuses their sales efforts on clients concerned about “UV rays, low heat emissions or just plain energy savings (90%+ for MR16s).” The “cost chasm” being the difference between the high capital cost to install LEDs and the far lower cost to run them than any other light source. They are currently the most efficient market ready solution.
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| LEDs have longer lifetime than halogen bulbs. Lasvit’s sculptures are “huge and very special. In some cases maintenance and changing regular bulbs is very troublesome. So we use LED instead.” Disadvantages from Lasvit’s perspective are that for their crystal chandeliers and sculptures require sparkling crystals. LEDs cannot make crystals sparkling as much as super hot halogen lamps favoured in storefront displays. |
Matsu Furniture who market the Nimbus brand, is currently working on many LED projects for clients such as Roche Pharmaceuticals, SITU.IMAGE Shanghai Architectural and Unilever. She has witnessed the scale of growth in the market — in the Unilever project, all the lighting in the 35000 sqm building is from Nimbus LED luminaries. According to Huang the greatest challenge in the LED world was how to become more efficient. She announced its greatest threat is how to lower LED cost and “how to meet the requirements of different needs of lighting”. Everyone agrees that with the increasing demand costs will continue to drop.
Quality control
The spectrum of qualitative concerns regarding LEDs is broad. Huang says companies differ in their offerings depending on their target market range with design, material, quality and underlying technology all variable. In this environment and with constant technological advances, true lifespan data scant. Nimbus’ own testing laboratory found its luminaries to have a long life of 50000 hours (equalling almost six years of use) after which, it predicts lighting efficiency will slowly decrease to 70 percent. Cameron explains that real lifespan testing for LEDs is problematic. “I don’t feel that anyone has come up with a testing system to shorten their lifetime (like CFL lifetime testing) to be able to accurately measure the real lifetime. Part of the issue is the LED lifetime and the driver lifetime, generally speaking the driver will die before the LED does so the claimed lifespans are a bit misleading. The LED can last 50-100,000 hours in the right temperature environment but the driver can perhaps only last 25-35,000 hours, I think that is the more important issue.”
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| Image: MR15 by Etrilum |
Of course they’re diamonds!
Lasvit would usually use high-energy using halogen bulbs due to the very small fraction of the up front cost per lumen they provide. But now its designers use LED when maintenance costs and temperature are at issue. Lehuta says “In some cases maintenance and changing regular bulbs is very troublesome. So we use LED instead.” One of the downsides to LEDs is that they can not produce the same properties of light as alternatives. Lahuta illustrates this explaining how they replaced 2700K LED strips with halogen lamps in a ballroom because “guests were complaining that their faces were green and ladies jewellery was not sparkling enough”. However, he continues “LEDs are nearly everywhere around us” and he expects LEDs to be producing a more natural light quality within the next two years.
Questions as to consistent brightness have hampered LEDs adoption as a replacement for general lighting. Reports such as that in IEEE Spectrum (Cover story The LED’s Dark Secret by Richard Stevenson) cast doubt on whether certain qualitative hurdles that can be so easily overcome. He speaks specifically of a phenomenon known as “droop” that affects LED brightness and stability at high wattages. This phenomenon relates specifically to the highly technical method in which LEDs are put together. The top companies are coming up with various solutions to the problem and in the mean time focussing sales in areas where clients require qualities other than brightness. However explains Cameron: “We are working on some retail/hospitality projects in Shanghai and Hangzhou for dimmable MR16 LEDs, a street light project in Shanghai and some overseas projects for T8 LED tubes. We have found the current LED MR16 options to be almost equal to the standard 50W halogen in brightness but it will take another year or two to match it and be stable.”
Industry threat – Optiled’s view
The biggest challenge is “for some LED manufacturers” to testify to their products life expectancy because some high brightness LEDs have been in the market for quite a while. The biggest threat has been customer’s perception of high capital costs of LED lighting equipment and nurturing of those customers who have had previous bad experience in using sub-standard LED to regain their confidence in using LED lighting equipment.
Identifying the cowboys
The diversity of LEDs is almost as great as the quantity of companies who are jostling for a piece of the pie. But Lehuta splits the players clearly: “Working in China I can see there are two groups. First: technology leaders. Second: companies that just copy the others”. However slowly standardisation is coming to this overheated industry. Optiled sees that “in terms of LED lamps and fittings, there are already reference standards and they are traditional luminaire standards. LED lighting equipment has been designed to retrofit existing luminaires. For LEDs, there are increasingly more international standards to regulate this product.”
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While standardisation is taking place in some sectors, other technologies are developing at lightning pace and throw traditional concepts of lighting out the window. The big players such as Thorn and Philips are close to the front of the pack, particularly in the development of next generation OLEDs (organic LED). Thorn is working with Durham University and Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) to develop processes for printing polymeric material (25cm2) that emits white light using low-energy power. The project has the potential, powered by renewable energy, to take lighting off the electricity grid. With technical issues the focus of the best names in the business, the general consensus is the future looks bright. Cameron says “I think the next two years will see an explosion in LED lighting as the lumens/watt of LED lighting will reach a level that they can replace more and more existing technologies through brightness and energy efficiency thus making the payback periods shorter for these lights.” With his company among many looking to find niche markets where LED advantages are strongest.
The standardisation process means that slowly supply chains are working together more harmoniously to reduce costs and to improve product offerings. As Optiled says cooperation has come in the form of “Cost rationalisation, sharing of technologies so that more reliable LEDs can be manufactured in a more cost effective and time efficient manner We need to differentiate between the new players base on quality and integrity on commitment. Pricing will be sensitive to all parties.” Cameron says this must happen along side buyer acceptance. “I think we are still more than 50% in the retrofit existing fixtures market, meaning the buyers want to take out their current bulb and put in an LED bulb with minimal fuss. They first need to be comfortable with LED light before they can install a tailor made solution that truly explores the limits of LED lighting design.”
