Recently, UK-based Energy Saving Trust (EST) has conducted a study which measured the performance of more than 4,250 LED light fittings installed at 35 sites in social housing.

At the 35 sites in the field trial, the report calculated that the LED fittings saved more than three million kilowatt hours each year whenpared with the previous lighting. The technology is also much more energy efficient, using up to 90% less energy than incandescent bulbs.

“We like to test things in-situ in order to understand their real performance rather than rely on manufacturers’ claims,” explained James Russill, EST’s technical development manager.

The technology is only now approaching universal acceptance as a valid choice for businesses and home owners. It is predicted the technology could dominate the lighting market by 2015.

It’s considered that 2012 will be the year when the technology matures and the hidden revolution in lighting bes public. The reach of LED lighting will extend beyond the specialists and early adopters and into the consumer mainstream.

James Russill said, “LEDs promise to be the way forward for the whole sector, to be honest. There are so many benefits: they can be smaller, brighter; it is one of those rare technologies where the trial has shown it performs better than the lighting systems it is replacing but, at the same time, using less energy.”

Talk about multi-tasking! Some creative German artists have taken that idea to heart with psychedelic, colorful art works they’re calling “Roomba Light Paintings.” By attaching color changing LED lights to a Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner and letting the thing run wild in an empty room, the group has created some stunning long-exposure photographs (and probably some very clean rooms). The pieces look like something Jackson Pollack might have created if he was alive today and had access to the right iPhone app.

While light painting is nothing revolutionary, the beautiful thing is that the Roomba Art Group is encouraging others to create Roomba Light Paintings of their own, and to share them on their open Flickr Group. Below are some of my favorites…I’d love to see some from our loyal Elemental LED readers. So quit putting off those house-cleaning chores, grab some LED ribbon or LED light bars and make some cool art while you’re at it!

Thanks to Roomba Art for the images.

As LED lighting is one of the most energy-efficient and versatile forms of lighting, the Europeanmission adopted a Green Paper and launched a public consultation on the future of LED-based lighting.

Based on the promising future that faster LED deployment will ensure the success of Europe's lighting industry and help reduce energy use from lighting by 20% by 2020, the demands for citizens and businesses to refine the policy are increasing. As a result, a consultation will run until 29 February 2012 to collect feedback on themission's ideas.

Digital Agendamissioner Neelie Kroes said: “Expanding LED lighting is a 'no-brainer'. It means more money in your pocket, and a healthier planet. Please give us your ideas on how to speed up its deployment and maximise the number of jobs and savings Europe can gain from expanding the use of LED lighting.”

There are some key questions for the public consultation including, which actions would help to ovee existing barriers and accelerate LED deployment in Europe, and how can the EU best supporty entrepreneurship andpetitiveness in the lighting sector?

Now Even More Versatility in Energy Efficient LED Replacements for Fluorescent Tubes

GlacialLight, a sub-division of the experienced technology manufacturer GlacialTech Inc., is pleased to announce 2 new sizes in the LED panel light series, Pollux. Dedicated to continuous improvement, these extensions of the Pollux series feature 3 different color temperatures as well as reduced power consumption.

The Pollux series LED panel lights offer flexibility for consumers wanting to replace less efficient fluorescent tubes. These LED panel lights by GlacialLight now additionallye in two different sizes, 300×300(GL-PL0303) and 300×600 (GL-PL0306), plus 3 color temperatures from warm white to cool white (3000K, 4000K, and 6000K). The GL-PL0303 uses only 16.5W while the larger GL-PL0306 consumes 25W, equating up to 40% less power consumption than fluorescent lamps.

With its elegant structure designed to dissipate heat, the Pollux series LED panel lights are ideal for replacing traditional tube lights and grid lights.pared with fluorescent tube lighting, the Pollux LED series has no perceptible flickering for perfect, easy on the eyes light, as well as a 6x longer life span of 30,000 hours.

Frommercial and industrial to residential indoor applications, Pollux LED panel lights are only 13mm thick and can be recessed or hung, placed on ceilings or walls, and provide users with exceptional versatility. With the environment in mind GlacialTech designed the Pollux LED light panel to contain no hazardous chemicals, such as mercury, or harmful radiation emissions such as UV or IR, making them more eco-friendly than traditional tube or grill lights. Pollux LED panel lights are also more economically friendly, consuming less power while providing more light, than traditional lighting products.

LED Panel Light (Pollux) Series Features
•    Slim,pact and fashionable design
•    Low Power Consumption
•    Elegant structure, designed to dissipate heat
•    6x longer lifespan than fluorescent lamps: 30,000 hours
•    Available in 3 different color temperatures and 2 different sizes
•    Ideal replacement for tube lights and grid lights
•    Eco-friendly: No UV, no IR, & no mercury
Excellent LED lighting products you can trust
The design of LED lighting products is based on three core technologies including electrical design (LED drivers), mechanical design (cooling devices), and optical design (lamp holders), respectively performed by GlacialPower, GlacialTech, and GlacialLight in the GlacialTech family. With the three core technologies in hand, GlacialTech has integrated all the resources required for exceptional designs and manufactures excellent LED lighting products you can trust.

Advantages and benefits of LED lightingpared to traditional lighting
•    Directional lighting: ideal for flashlights/torches and spotlights
•    No warm-up time in cold environments: LEDs don’t require warm-up time like conventional CFLs
•    No harmful radiation and no hazardous metals: LEDs don’t emit harmful radiation such as Ultraviolet or Infrared emitting halogen lamps and don’t contain hazardous metals such as mercury contained in mercury lamps
•    Extremely long lifetimes free users from frequent bulb replacement
•    Extremely small carbon footprints: an environmentally-friendly technology

Organic Electric—the name is fitting for this series of LED art works by Jason Krugman, as it features flexible LED mesh that’s been hand-soldered into 3-dimensional shapes that animate and respond when touched. The pieces beautifully blur the line between the living world and the digital realm. According to Creative Applications, the series is “an exploration into the possibilities of 3-dimensional electro-luminescent LED structures. There are myriad possibilities for LEDs as a physical media, going far beyond their traditional use in Times Square type, 2-dimensional information displays. The concept of LED Weaving is new and uncharted territory…Organic Electric seeks to create organically shaped, responsive LED forms, rooted in analog and digital building techniques.”

Music lovers and LED-enthusiasts alike will love The Treble Chandelier, which is part of Krugman’s Organic Electric series. Created using 3,000 LED lights, this piece pays homage not only to essential elements of music, but also to the belief that the future of music is rooted in digital technology.

Many of the other pieces in the series are interactive thanks to the use of an LED light controller, and are meant to be viewed when animated. You can see some of them in action here.

Thanks to Trendhunter for the images.

UK corporation Revend Recycling Ltd, has launched an innovative reverse vending recycling machine for the collection and recycling of domestic light bulbs and domestic batteries.

The machine is the “FIRST” domestic light bulb reverse vending recycling machine of its type in the World and has been jointly designed and developed by Revend Recycling Ltd and Repant ASA, a corporation listed on the Norwegian Stock Exchange.

Increased demand for recycling light bulbs and the international change over to CFL and LED domestic light bulbs and the recycling of domestic batteries is a key environment policy for all Governments, the EUmission and the United Nations.

The new range of light bulb recycling machines from Revend will help to increase national recycling rates and assistpanies and organisationsply with their recycling targets and environmental recycling obligations.

Revend Recycling will sell & market unique reverse vending recycling machines throughout Europe, USA & worldwide under its brand name Revend.

Recently, Revend Recycling has signed a supply agreement with IKEA of Sweden, and will install a number of machines in several IKEA stores including the UK, Germany, & Denmark.

IKEA is the first to install the unique light bulb reverse vending recycling technology in its stores starting with IKEA Wembley and IKEA Wednesbury, West Midlands.
 

Woodburn has embraced with LED lights as part of a new green initiative.West Virginia University students and members of the Morgantownmunity came together Friday evening for a timeless Mountaineer tradition: the lighting of Woodburn Hall.

A $3.9 million renovation project to the historic building began in 2010.LED lights were selected to increase the bulb life cycle, reduce maintenance costs and reduce energy consumption.The new LED lights change from Mountaineer gold and blue to red and green for the holiday season.

The lights on Woodburn will shift to white in mid-January and will continue to be illuminated during the course of the school year.

Recently, the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology and Seoul National University have made an announcement that the first LEDs to be fabricated on amorphous glass substrates.

As we know, manufacturers may peffer to improve GaN LEDs on silicon substrates (GaN-on-Si) rather than to choose gallium nitride (GaN)-based LEDs grown on crystalline sapphire wafers due to their expensive cost and are not amenable to large-sized wafer arrays.

But the research conducted by the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology and Seoul National University has found that GaN LEDs on amorphous glass substrates offer even lower manufacturing costs, easier scalability to large-sized LED arrays, and potential use as emissive devices due to the transparency of the glass substrate material.

According to the research, the secret to controlled growth of the five-period indium GaN/GaN (InGaN/GaN) multiple quantum wells thatprise the emissive layer in the pyramidal-shaped LED array is a thin-film titanium pre-orienting layer that is similar to the GaN hexagonal crystal structure.

Following the pre-orienting layer and the initial low-temperature GaN layer (LT-GaN) is a hole-patterned silicon dioxide (SiO2) layer that further defines the nucleation sites for the emissive-layer growth stages using a local heteroepitaxy process.

After polymerization of the pyramidal structures and a final indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode layer, the pyramidal LED devices were found to emit illumination in the range from 448–478 nm with an approximate luminance of 600 cd/m2.

During his visit to the Bavarian state capital Munich, the Chinese Minister of Science and Technology Wan Gang met the managing board of OSRAM AG. The discussions focused above all on questions concerning closer cooperation in the field of light-emitting diodes, in short LED. The chairman of the managing board at OSRAM AG, Wolfgang Dehen, emphasized: “The discussions were of enormous importance to us notably with a view to the great significance of the Chinese lighting market.”
 
Following its inspection of a pioneering OSRAM test installation for LED applications in an art collection in Munich, the Chinese delegation met OSRAM’s managing board. The discussions concentrated primarily on future areas of cooperation in the LED sector.
 
OSRAM has been represented for some 80 years with its products in China and today covers the entire value chain there. In total, OSRAM employs more than 10,000 staff in the fast-growing Chinese market. According to a survey conducted by the management consultancy McKinsey, the Chinese lighting market is set to double in value by 2020 from its current level of more than 8 billion euros.
 

OSRAM Opto Semiconductors Asia Ltd. has a new CEO. Louis Lam took over thepany’s Asian business at the beginning of December. He is also Vice President for worldwide sales of OSRAM Opto Semiconductors. His predecessor Dr Alfred Felder will in future be responsible for global sales of the business unit General Lighting at the parentpany OSRAM AG.

Louis Lam can look back on more than 25 years of experience in marketing and sales, as well as business development in the opto-semiconductors industry. He was responsible, among other things, for the successful expansion of regional business in Asia in the fields of mobile devices, Solid State Lighting (SSL), automotive lighting and various other sectors of industry.

“With his know-how and many years of experience in market development and in building up customer loyalty, Louis Lam is an outstanding choice particularly with a view to the important Asian market. At the same time, our thanks are due to Alfred Felder for his excellent work in this position,” says Aldo Kamper, CEO of OSRAM Opto Semiconductors.

Photo: OSRAM

Dr Alfred Felder (left) has moved to OSRAM AG – Louis Lam (right) took over as new CEO of OSRAM Opto Semiconductors Asia Ltd. in December.

osram-os/press

Curriculum vitae Louis Lam:
2010 – 2011    National Semiconductor Asia Ltd., President and Managing Director
2007 – 2010    OSRAM Opto Semiconductors Asia Ltd., Vice President of APAC Sales
2004 – 2007    SMSC Asia Ltd., Managing Director and Vice President Asia Sales
1998 – 2004    Asia Pacific Ltd., International Sales Director
(OEM and SME Channel Sales for APAC, Japan & Europe)
1994 – 1998    VP Asia and Japan Sales & Marketing, Te Semiconductor Ltd.
1992 – 1994    Bourns Asia Pacific Inc., Area Sales Manager for North Asia
1986 – 1992    National Semiconductor (H.K.) Ltd. Business Unit head of Microsystems Asia
1990    University of East Asia, Macau (MBA)
1981 – 1986    Southern Illinois University, USA (Bachelor and Master in electrical engineering)

ABOUT OSRAM OPTO SEMICONDUCTORS
OSRAM AG (Munich, Germany) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Siemens AG and one of the two leading light manufacturers in the world. Its subsidiary, OSRAM Opto Semiconductors GmbH in Regensburg (Germany), offers its customers solutions based on semiconductor technology for lighting, sensor and visualization applications. OSRAM Opto Semiconductors has production sites in Regensburg (Germany) and Penang (Malaysia). Its headquarters for North America is in Sunnyvale (USA), and for Asia in Hong Kong. OSRAM Opto Semiconductors also has sales offices throughout the world. For more information go to osram-os.