How is LED technology illuminating the lighting industry?

With energy conservation and environmental protection at the forefront of every conscientious manufacturer’s priorities, LED lighting technology has gained an ever greater foothold in the lighting industry.

Regulation, prescribing a gradual phase-out of widely used incandescent lamps, has overseen dramatic change in the lighting products used for household and commercial purposes.

LED technology is leading the lighting industry into the 21st Century. The rise of LED lighting technology has been accelerated by regulators’ decision to remove the century old incandescent light bulbs from consumer and commercial use. LEDs have been shown to be more efficient than incandescent lamps going by almost all criteria, and regulators around the world are setting detailed requirements for the performance and technical parameters of LED lighting.

The US Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 now forbids the use of 100W incandescent lights, and by 2014 the use of 75W, 60W and 40W incandescent lights will be phased-out as well. In the EU incandescent light bulbs from 100W through to 60W, in accordance with ErP IM 244/2009, have been phased-out and in China, experts from the China Association of Lighting expect the ‘The Twelfth Five-Year Plan’ to incorporate LED into new strategic industries.

Incandescent lamps can only transform ten percent of electricity into light and have a lifetime of between 1,000 and 2,000 hours. With the incessant improvement of the luminous efficiency of LEDs, they can now provide 54Im/W, while the incandescent lamp can only achieve 18Im/W and have been shown to have a much greater lifetime of over 20,000 hours.

LED lighting is still a developing technology and problems such as heat dissipation and light distribution must be addressed. Over heated LEDs have a dramatically shortened life span, while at low temperatures, the higher the electric current, the brighter the LED becomes.

The light distribution of the LED typically sheds light in one direction but to adequately replace incandescent lamps, LED light distribution must be scattered into a surface distribution shape. The largest players in the lighting industry are heavily investing into semiconductor technologies so that technological drawbacks can be addressed and LEDs can make a significant entry on to the general lighting market. New LED standards are currently being prepared or are undergoing improvements, particularly IEC standards.