Lighting the Way to Energy Savings and Job Growth in North Carolina

Rapid declines in the price of light emitting diodes (LED) technology suggest that the next generation of energy efficient lighting – LED bulbs – is on the verge of widespread adoption. LED bulbs will eventually make traditional, energy-hogging incandescent bulbs a thing of the past. In North Carolina, for example, one of the world’s largest LED bulb manufacturers, Cree, recently announced a new bulb that is up to 82 percent more efficient than an incandescent bulb. The bulb sells for about $8 at Home Depot, a price that means the bulb will pay for itself in energy savings in about a year.

Are LEDs Bad For Your Health?

In looking at answers to this question it becomes evident that some LEDs are, and some are not. In order to understand why this is true, it’s important to look at eye physiology and how we can achieve, experience and maintain perfect vision. To start, let’s take a quick look at how your eye works. Your eye is made up of cones and rods that help you see color and light. During nighttime or indoor conditions, your rods are primarily used for vision. Rods are very light sensitive, but are not very good at discerning color. Cones, which helps us focus and see color, only respond to bright light, which is why in low-light conditions we don’t see color very well. Why does this matter in your choice of lighting?

PWC offers credit for LEDs

Geo and Chelsea Livingston use so many energy-efficient LEDs in their 20,000-light Christmas display that their power bill is about the same as when they have to run their air-conditioner in the summer. Fayetteville Public Works Commission officials are encouraging all their customers to make similar decisions. Those who do can get a credit of up to $40 on their power bills. The Seasonal Light Incentive Program runs through Wednesday. Customers have to fill out an application and provide receipts from buying the new lights. PWC customers can get an $8 credit for up to five strands with 100 lights or more. They get a $4 credit for strands with 99 lights or fewer.

Why LEDs Are Conquering Lighting

In December, the Nobel Prize for physics went to the team behind a significant invention: the blue light-emitting diode (LED). While red and green LEDs have been around since the 1960s, figuring out how to make blue diodes bright enough stumped engineers until the early nineties. That advance—enabled by high-quality gallium nitride— quickly led to another. By converting blue light to white, engineers produced the crisp beams now ubiquitous in computer screens and smartphones. More recently, they found yet another application: street lamps. To date, Los Angeles has swapped in 155,000 LED fixtures, a move that has reduced both municipal energy bills and light pollution. Ed Ebrahimian, who directs L.A.’s Bureau of Street Lighting, says the benefits are a no-brainer for cities. “We’re at the tip of an iceberg,” he says. “I think we are going to see a tremendous conversion happening in the next five to 10 years.”

3 Myths Surrounding LEDs

An article in a recent issue of the Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology detailed a study in which the effects of LED light on human retinal cells were examined and concluded that LEDs can harm human eyes. The authors of this article came to this conclusion based on an experiment that exposed human retinal cells to 5 mW per cm2 of light from an LED for 12 hr. This equates to staring at a 100-W-equivalent light bulb from four inches away for 12 hr. Light at that intensity and duration would likely damage anyone’s retinas and is one reason parents tell kids not to stare at the sun. And if scientists ever do discover a real danger from LEDs, future LEDs can be tuned to emit a spectrum of light similar to that from ordinary incandescent bulbs

Panasonic LED signs beam data to phones 5 meters away

Panasonic has developed LCD signs that can beam ID codes linked to ads and other information to smartphone cameras that are 5 meters away or farther.  It's promoting the technology as an advance beyond QR codes, which require users to hold their phones close to a code when scanning it, as well as a high-speed form of communications using light. The Hikari ID technology is based on ID signals sent by LEDs that form the backlight of LCD signage. The LEDs flicker on and off at a rate that is imperceptible to the human eye, but it can be picked up by smartphone camera sensors.

Fujitsu’s high-tech light bulb shines data on objects

Researchers have already figured out how to turn an array of LED light bulbs into a wireless data network. Now they’re using them to “print” invisible data onto physical objects. Brilliant minds at Fujitsu have figured out how to use an LED lamp as a sort of replacement for QR codes. Fujitsu’s lamp sends a stream of zeroes and ones by varying the intensity of the red, green, and blue LEDs. The fluctuations don’t need to be dramatic, either. Small changes work just fine, and they’re virtually undetectable to viewers. It’s pretty much the same way Li-Fi transmits data among devices.

This Company Is Set For Growth Considering the Growth Of LED Lights Market

Various research companies and analysts anticipate the LED lighting market to grow 45% per year through 2019. The market sizeof LED lighting was $4.8 billion in 2012, and is anticipated to reach $42 billion by 2019. This market is projected to grow annually at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 12% from 2012 to 2017. The LED lighting market growth is mainly due to reducing prices, higher luminous and increased interest by the channels in pushing LEDs to consumers, this is providing deeper penetration. Cree (CREE), is one of the leading player in the LED lighting and fixture market maintaining a rich product portfolio with innovative LED lighting solutions. I have tried to explain the reasons for the anticipated growth of CREE, in the rest of the article.

LEDs brighten the holidays, launch fashion trend, refute climate skeptics

A study recently conducted by the National Federation of Independent Businesses confirms what we've known for quite a while – LEDs can provide dramatic savings in energy costs, one of the three largest operating expenses for than a third of all small businesses. And if you're still having trouble refuting the LED conspiracy theories cited by anti-science climate skeptics  and other survivalist/flat-Earther types, you can show them the savings available from many commonly-used LED applications which are documented nicely in a recent article, "LED lighting is one of the quickest ways small business owners can reduce their energy bills", published in Small Business Trends.

Mirvac and AMP Capital’s 200 George Street to go fully LED

Mirvac and AMP Capital’s 37-storey premium grade 200 George Street, Sydney building will become one of Australia’s first fully LED-lit commercial office buildings, the owners have announced. The move is expected to reduce lighting energy consumption by between 30-50 per cent and reduce light replacements to once every 12 years. Mirvac Group executive, commercial development David Rolls said the current T5 lighting technology had plateaued, and LEDs were the future of lighting.

Taking a shine to LEDs

Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer, had a very shiny nose. And if you ever saw him, you would even say it’s a light-emitting diode. Better known as LEDs, these many-colored, energy-efficient, long-lasting products are electrifying the lighting industry this holiday season. A novelty just a few years ago, LEDs have become so mainstream that they’re nearly blowing traditional glass incandescent bulbs right off the Yuletide landscape. In every category, LED lights are outselling traditional lights 2-to-1, said K.C. Cours, vice president the Englewood, Colorado-based online retailer Noveltylights.com.

Moore'sCloud app-controlled light startup in liquidation

Australian technology entrepreneur Mark Pesce's app-controlled light startup Moore'sCloud has been wound up, with the company going into liquidation on November 20. Notice of the company's liquidation, which Pesce said was voluntary, was published by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission on November 26. Pesce, an inventor, entrepreneur, author, educator, and self-proclaimed futurist, held a position as the company's founder and chief executive officer.

5 Lighting Trends Reflect the Age of LEDs

Catering to a new young generation of globe trotters, the past year has seen the launch of a plethora of portable lighting designs that can move with us from place to place. One such design is the cordless ‘M’ Lamp by British designer David Irwin for Brooklyn-based Juniper Design. Untethered by a power source, the ‘M’ Lamp is powered by a lithium battery that provides 18 hours of light on a single charge. It’s made from lightweight aluminum and Irwin explains that the compact cordless design is a modern interpretation of the archetypal 19th century miner’s lamps that were used in Northeast England. Hang it from the ceiling or rest it next to the bed, the flexible ‘M’ lamp is designed to adapt to an array of environments and situations.

Surface state engineering to achieve white LEDs with carbon nanomaterials

White-light-emitting diodes (W-LEDs) have many advantages over forms of lighting – incandescent, fluorescent and halogen – and this solid-state lighting technique is bound to make major inroads into the commercial and household markets. Conventional W-LED fabrication uses phosphors, which depend on scarce and expensive rare earths, or in a more recently developed technique, on quantum dots. Unfortunately, the toxicity of the elements used for efficient quantum dot based LEDs – CdS, CdSe, and their Pb containing counterparts – is a severe drawback for many applications.