LED + SSL

The Department of Energy has awarded the ENERGY STAR qualification to Renaissance Lighting Inc. on 11 of its newest all-white solid-state LED downlight fixtures. The ENERGY STAR qualification helps consumers identify the most energy efficient products on the market. ENERGY STAR qualification currently requires an LED recessed downlight fixture to deliver an efficacy of at [...]

The Department of Energy’s Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize (L Prize) competition has received its first entrant: a product from Philips Electronics. Philips has developed, manufactured and will bring to market an LED replacement for the common 60W incandescent light bulb. Philips developed this product in response to DOE’s industry-wide challenge, and was today recognized by [...]

SSL blogger Kevin Willmorth argues in this post at Architectural SSL Interactive that we are holding solid-state lighting to an unrealistic standard, while ignoring the real issue: the cost of integration of solid-state lighting, such as LEDs, into products.

Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Inc., has replaced approximately 12,000 standard incandescent and halogen lights in more than 150 Red Robin restaurant locations in the U.S. with new 7W GE LED PAR 20 floodlights and spotlights in general downlighting applications. The LED lamps, which emit 200 lumens, are expected to reduce energy consumption by 77% while [...]

In September 2009, the Department of Energy is planning to form a Municipal Solid-State Street Lighting Consortium to collect, share and analyze technical information and experience related to LED streetlighting demonstrations. Membership will be open to municipalities, utilities and energy efficiency organizations. Click here to learn more.

An interesting potential advantage of LED lighting for buildings is the ability to add a new dimension of control–color–enabling adjustment of color temperature based on different uses of a space or time of day, while also providing high color rendering. LED Journal has published an article on this topic by Muhamad Moussa, technical marketing engineer, [...]

The 2009 Next Generation Luminaires (NGL) SSL Design Competition will accept “Intents to Submit” through September 15, 2009. Final entries are due by November 13. Winners will be announced next February. Click here for details and online submission.

Today’s News & Observer includes a story on Cree’s intent to raise hundreds of millions of dollars by issuing 11 million shares of stock, according to a filing made Tuesday with the SEC. Get the story here. Update: As for September 30, this link no longer appears to be working. I found the story published [...]

The second Solid-State Lighting Manufacturing Workshop, held June 24-25 in Vancouver, WA and hosted by the Department of Energy, drew more than 150 participants studying issues related to SSL product quality and cost. Workshop highlights, presentations and materials have been posted on the DOE SSL website here.