Available Technologies: More Efficient Lighting

June 5, 2005 – Vol.10 No.11

AVAILABLE TECHNOLOGIES: MORE EFFICIENT LIGHTING.

The incandescent light bulb is near burn out. The replacement which uses 80 - 90 percent less electricity and lasts almost indefinitely is the light emitting diode (LED), even though costs are currently too high.

(Compact fluorescents are OK too, but LEDs with their instant start, even lower energy consumption, really long life, and dimmability for all models, seem to be the winner of the two. )

And, LED technology keeps getting better.

Osram, the lighting division of Siemens, has developed the world’s brightest white-light LED. Known as Ostar Lighting, a single LED produces 200 Lumens at 700 milliamps. Only eight would be needed to match the light output of a common 100-watt bulb.

Average life for each Ostar is expected to be 50,000 hours - almost 18 years of life if left on for 8 hours a day.

The company admits that Ostar’s high cost might limit the LED’s mass appeal. That may change soon. Ostar is expected in the marketplace in 2006.

Costs for LED lighting will drop with popularity, mass production and, typically in the globalized world, low labor costs in factories that produce them.

Cree, one of the leaders in LED technologies, has licensed COTCO International of Hong Kong to produce Cree LED products.

Enough said. LED prices are now set to drop.

Visit Osram at http://www.osram-os.com/ostar-lighting , COTCO at http://www.cotco.com/