Goodbye fluorescent lamp
If you've worked in an office,
you're probably familiar with the soft glow of fluorescent tubes drifting from
the ceiling. If Europe's Philips brand is right, those lamps could soon be
history.
Royal Philips NV, the Dutch
consumer appliances giant, said Thursday that it has developed an LED light
that will soon be far more efficient than the best fluorescents on the market.
That should make it cheaper and greener, as well.
It's a combination that will
inevitably help the LED dominate the market for illuminating the world's
workplaces, according to the global leader in lighting sales.
In an interview with The
Associated Press ahead of the unveiling of the new light, a top executive said
the prototype LED is headed to mass production and will hit the market in 2015.
He claimed that in 10 years, LEDs will replace at least half of the world's
fluorescent bulbs, which have been the main source of workplace lighting since
shortly after World War II.
"This is a major step
forward for the lighting world," said Rene van Schooten, CEO of Philips'
light sources division. "It will bring an enormous savings in
energy."
Experts outside the Dutch
company say they have long expected LEDs to eclipse fluorescents. If Philips'
predictions are correct, however, the arrival of the LED in office spaces will
come faster than expected.
The potential impact in energy
and cost savings, as well as pollution reduction, is significant — though toxic
materials are used in manufacturing both fluorescents and LEDs.
Lights suck up more than 15
percent of all energy produced globally, and fluorescent lights currently make
up more than half of the total lighting market.
In the United States alone,
fluorescents consume about 200 terawatts annually, according to Philips'
estimates. Cutting that in half would save $12 billion in electricity costs and
lessen carbon dioxide emissions by 60 million metric tons per year, the company
said.
Dr. Eugenia Ellis, a professor
of engineering and architecture at Drexel University, who works with LED
installations, said an efficiency improvement at the level Philips forecasts
would be impressive. Cost savings from using LEDs can already be significant:
Ellis gave the example of a hospital recently saving $75,000 a year on energy
bills by switching.
In recent years,
energy-efficient lights made by Philips, Siemens AG, General Electric Co., Cree
Inc. and others using LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, have made significant
inroads in the home market, replacing many incandescent and halogen bulbs.
But because fluorescent bulbs
are themselves highly efficient, LED lights have so far achieved only a small
foothold in business and industry. LEDs are competitive in heavy use settings
where their longer lifespans and a minor energy edge pay off.
Philips says its new lamp will
change all of that. The technical milestone the company claims to have achieved
is the ability to produce 200 lumens of light per watt. A lumen is the standard
measure of the amount of light a lamp casts in a given area.
According to Mark Hand, a
technology expert at Philips competitor Acuity Brands Inc., that's about twice
the output per watt of the best fluorescent tubes currently on the market; he
estimated the best LED lamps may get up to 120 lumens per watt.
Cree already advertises an LED
lamp it says reaches 200 lumens per watt under some circumstances. Van Schooten
said the Philips lamp is different. It will be the first on the market that
reaches that level of efficiency and functions across a normal range of
temperatures and is capable of consistently producing the same amount of warm
white colored light as comparable fluorescent tubes.
Essentially, Van Schooten said,
"if you walk into the room, you don't say, 'what a funny lamp.'"
U.S. Department of Energy
projections published in April 2012 showed the government had expected the
industry would only achieve efficiencies of 160 lumens per watt for LED lamps
by 2015.
Philips' Van Schooten said that
initially, prices of its LED tubes will still be higher than fluorescent
lights. But taking into account electricity costs, the increased efficiency in
2015 will make them cheaper to own within a year, as opposed to three years at
present.
And further manufacturing
savings and efficiency improvements to LED lights will come with each
generation of technology.
"The case is rather
compelling, but of course it takes some time to replace existing
infrastructure," Van Schooten said.
Philips lighting sales in 2012
amounted to 8.4 billion euros ($11 billion) in a total global market that
consulting firm McKinsey puts at 70 billion euros.
Acuity Brands' Hand said that
Philips' 10-year view may even be pessimistic. Although LEDs currently make up
only a small percentage of his company's $1.9 billion in annual sales, he
expects that to change quickly.
"LEDs will take over,
definitely within 10 years," he said. He predicted that LEDs would make up
more than 50 percent of new sales "certainly within 5 years, maybe within
three."
Ironically, Philips will both
lose and gain from the change: It is not only the largest maker of LEDs, but
also of fluorescent tubes.
"Clearly we'll have to
phase that out," Van Schooten said. But "we knew this moment was
coming for some time."
