New light to illuminate the world

This year’s Nobel Laureates are rewarded for having invented a new energy-efficient and environment-friendly light source – the blue light-emitting diode (LED). In the spirit of Alfred Nobel the Prize rewards an invention of greatest benefit to mankind; using blue LEDs, white light can be created in a new way. With the advent of LED lamps we now have more long-lasting and more efficient alternatives to older light sources.

When Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura produced bright blue light beams from their semi-conductors in the early 1990s, they triggered a funda-mental transformation of lighting technology. Red and green diodes had been around for a long time but without blue light, white lamps could not be created. Despite considerable efforts, both in the scientific community and in industry, the blue LED had remained a challenge for three decades.

They succeeded where everyone else had failed. Akasaki worked together with Amano at the University of Nagoya, while Nakamura was employed at Nichia Chemicals, a small company in Tokushima. Their inventions were revolutionary. Incandescent light bulbs lit the 20th century; the 21st century will be lit by LED lamps.

White LED lamps emit a bright white light, are long-lasting and energy-efficient. They are constantly improved, getting more efficient with higher luminous flux (measured in lumen) per unit electrical input power (measured in watt). The most recent record is just over 300 lm/W, which can be compared to 16 for regular light bulbs and close to 70 for fluorescent lamps. As about one fourth of world electricity consumption is used for lighting purposes, the LEDs contribute to saving the Earth’s resources. Materials consumption is also diminished as LEDs last up to 100,000 hours, compared to 1,000 for incandescent bulbs and 10,000 hours for fluorescent lights.

The LED lamp holds great promise for increasing the quality of life for over 1.5 billion people around the world who lack access to electricity grids: due to low power requirements it can be powered by cheap local solar power.

The invention of the blue LED is just twenty years old, but it has already contributed to create white light in an entirely new manner to the benefit of us all.

Gigantic 'Energy Duck' Could Generate Solar and Hydro Power for Copenhagen

The Energy Duck is modeled on the common eider duck, which is found in the waters of Copenhagen. Unfortunately, the eider’s breeding habitat is at risk from the effects of climate change, so the team decided to use its form to raise awareness of the local impacts of a global issue. The appealing, 12-storey high sculpture is proposed to float in the waters of the city’s harbor. It would be constructed from a lightweight steel frame, with very lightweight steel supporting a skin of photovoltaic panels and dummy panels.

Some of the electricity generated by the low-cost, off-the-shelf PV panels would be stored in the form of gravitational potential energy via water pressure. That is, energy is stored by virtue of the difference in water heights inside and outside the duck. The team states: “At night, when there is no solar radiation, the water pressure can be released through hydro turbines within the duck’s belly providing renewable electricity at all times. The floating height of the duck is an indicator of the amount of city-wide energy use relative to the renewable generation.” Both the solar- and hydro-generated power produced would be fed to the city grid, as per the requirements of the competition, and the energy yield would be 75 percent of that of a fully optimized solar farm on the same site. At night the duck would be lit with very low power LED lamps that change color, with the color pattern undulating in a rhythm proportional to the output of the hydro turbines.

Visitors to the sculpture would be able to move around inside the duck through an enormous honeycomb mesh of lightweight steel. Above would be the pattern of a mesh of PV panels in silhouette, backlit by light streaming in through the gaps. Below, visitors would be able to see the sea water rising and falling within the pressure storage tanks. Of their submission the team states: “Often the prospective negative environmental effects of climate change, brought about by excessive CO2 emissions can seem a removed and distant issue. Energy Duck frames the issue of climate change, ecology and the importance of renewable energy in a local context.”

http://inhabitat.com/conceptual-energy-duck-produces-solar-and-hydro-power-for-lagi-2014-in-copenhagen/

U.S. Lighting Company Cree Invests in Another Chinese LED Manufacturer

Cree (NAASDAQ: CREE) and Lextar (TAIEX: 3698) have announced a business relationship in which Cree will invest in the Taiwan-based LED manufacturer and will source LEDs from Lextar for use in future solid-state lighting (SSL) products. Cree will purchase 83 million Lextar shares and will assume 13% ownership in the company while Lextar will get access to Cree intellectual property and to Cree Lighting as a customer for its LEDs.

 While the summer has been relatively quiet in terms of new LED product announcements, the business side of the sector has been quite busy. In July we saw Epistar acquire Formosa Epitaxy (Forepi) despite the fact that Epistar rival Sanan Optoelectronics owned a large share of Forepi. That acquisition apparently was driven by Epistar's need to ramp capacity amid growing demand for LEDs from the general lighting sector.

The Cree and Lextar agreement could be driven both by capacity concerns at Cree and by the fact that Cree has not invested heavily in traditional mid-power LED product lines. Cree has announced a number of very-small LEDs such as the XLamp XB-H that came to market in March, but the devices exhibit high-power performance and are packaged in high-reliability yet expensive ceramic.

While Cree has insisted that ceramic-packaged LEDs are the best fit for lighting, there are clearly applications such as linear fixtures that are a good match for mid-power LEDs in either plastic or hybrid packages that bring some of the reliability benefits of ceramic. With Cree expanding its presence in the end lighting market, the need for a mid-power source for some products is an expected development.

"We are excited to be strengthening our relationship with Lextar to enable growth in LEDs and lighting," stated Chuck Swoboda, Cree chairman and CEO. "Working with Lextar to supply high-quality, mid-power LED chips enables Cree to focus its resources on the high-performance, high-power LED chips that differentiate Cree LEDs in the market. This approach provides the operational and financial flexibility to help Cree achieve the best return on our people and invested capital."

For Lextar the benefits of the relationship are perfectly clear. The company gets capital that can help it expand production. And the Cree intellectual property cross-license will prove important to the company serving lighting customers other than Cree.

"Lextar has established a strong technology position and customer base in the mid-power back-lighting LED segment, while Cree has had outstanding performance in the high-power LED component and lighting markets," said Dr. David Su, chairman and CEO of Lextar. "We are very excited about this new cooperation with Cree. We strongly believe this new collaboration will increase the competitiveness of our products and technology, enabling both companies continued growth in the LED lighting market. Furthermore, the cross license of LED chip and component intellectual property will afford both Cree and Lextar the benefits from our product and technology development, thereby strengthening our mutual competitiveness in the global LED industry."

Lextar and Cree both just announced quarterly financial results and once again Cree's revenue was up significantly. Lextar also announced an 18% increase in revenue and said it had overcome manufacturing roadblocks that had gated growth and the company pledged to expand capacity.

Cree's investment will help enable the Lextar goal of expansion. Cree will pay NTD 30 ($1) per share for the 13% stake, equating to an $83 million investment. The companies said that both boards have approved the deal and it is expected to close by the end of the year.

Solar Boom Drives First Global Panel Shortage Since 2006

Ehren Goossens, Bloomberg 
August 20, 2014

NEW YORK -- The solar industry is facing a looming shortage of photovoltaic panels, reversing a two-year slump triggered by a global glut.

The oversupply pushed prices through the floor, making solar power more competitive and driving up demand. It also dragged dozens of manufacturers into bankruptcy, and slowed capital investment at the survivors. With installations expected to swell as much as 29 percent this year, executives are bracing for the first shortfall since 2006.

Scarcity will benefit the biggest manufacturers, including China’s Yingli Green Energy Holdings Co. and Trina Solar Ltd. A shortage may slow development outside the top markets in Asia and North America if suppliers favor their largest customers. Shipments to large, utility-scale solar farms may get priority over smaller, rooftop systems, threatening one of the industry’s fastest-growing markets.

“The cell and module glut has certainly dried up,” said Stefan de Haan, a solar analyst at IHS Inc. “There is no massive overcapacity anymore.”

The looming shortage shows the rapid expansion of solar energy. The industry may install as much as 52 gigawatts this year and 61 gigawatts in 2015. That’s up from 40 gigawatts in 2013, and more than seven times what developers demanded five years ago, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

The industry has about 70 gigawatts of production capacity, New Energy Finance estimates, including a significant amount of older equipment that’s not profitable. The supply-demand balance is tighter than those numbers suggest. De Haan estimates capacity at about 59 gigawatts, excluding manufacturing lines that are out of date or obsolete.

‘On Par’

Considering only “factories that are meaningful and active,” supply and demand is “almost on par,” said Luc Grare, senior vice president for the Norwegian panelmaker REC Solar ASA.

The last time supplies were hard to find was in 2006, when the nascent industry installed just 1.5 gigawatts of capacity. The following year, the top Chinese manufacturers raised $1.8 billion selling stock to Wall Street to finance new production capacity.

Chinese manufacturers sold about $5 billion of shares from 2005 to 2010, and wrested control of the market from companies in the U.S., Germany and Japan. The added capacity drove down prices and pushed dozens of manufacturers into bankruptcy. Solar panels sell for 76 cents a watt now, compared with $2.01 at the end of 2010.

Expanding Now

Nobody is predicting upheaval now. Production capacity this year is “expected to stay more or less flat, but consolidate, with new-build balancing exits,” said Jenny Chase, lead solar analyst at New Energy Finance.

Some manufacturers are already expanding. In May, Canadian Solar Inc. began construction on a new cell factory in China, a joint venture with GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd. that will initially have 300 megawatts of annual capacity.

The solar industry is cyclical and near a turning point, said Canadian Solar Chief Executive Officer Shawn Qu. He’s expanding now because he anticipates a shortage.

“Every industry goes through cycles,” Qu said. “It’s inevitable to see a cycle in solar.”

Other manufacturers already see a shortfall.

“It would be fair to say our panels are in short supply,” said Tom Werner, CEO of SunPower Corp. The San Jose, California-based company’s factories are running at full, and it announced in July plans for a new factory that may begin production in 2017 and will be able to make at least 700 megawatts a year. That’s more than double the plant it’s bringing online next year.

Supply Chain

When panels become scarce, they’ll probably be routed to customers placing the biggest orders, said Angelo Zino, an analyst in New York at S&P Capital IQ.

“The large-scale utility projects are going to be where the modules go,” Zino said. “If there’s any sort of tightness in the supply chain, you would think that the push-outs would be on the residential side.”

That potential threat to the rapidly growing U.S. residential solar market prompted SolarCity Corp. to buy a panelmaker in June. The rooftop developer expects demand to surge, especially for systems atop homes and commercial buildings.

SolarCity Deal

“At some point, it will be a 400-gigawatt-a-year market; it’s just mathematical,” said CEO Lyndon Rive. Smaller companies without supply contracts may be unable to get enough panels.

Billionaire Elon Musk, SolarCity’s chairman, said the acquisition will guarantee supply. “If we don’t do this, we thought there was risk of not being able to have the solar panels we need,” he said during a conference call announcing the deal.

Any shortage may also limit deliveries to markets where stronger demand means better pricing, said REC Solar’s Grare.

Regions with “heavy price competition” such as Latin America will feel a shortage first, while regions with stable prices, such as the U.S. and Japan, will be prioritized, he said.

Companies that make manufacturing equipment such as Germany’s Manz AG expect the looming shortage to spur orders.

“According to our estimation, the gap between supply and demand will be closed at the end of 2014,” said Axel Bartmann, a spokesman for Manz. “This will definitely lead to rising investments in advanced equipment.”

Panel Pricing

Unlike other industries, a shortage probably won’t boost prices, said Arno Harris, CEO of Recurrent Energy, a San Francisco-based developer owned by Sharp Corp.

As production costs slide, manufacturers can increase profit without raising prices. That’s important because solar power is extremely price-sensitive, Harris said.

“It would be difficult for module pricing to really go up because there isn’t going to be natural demand for those products at those higher price points,” Harris said. “If you raise the price too much they’ll move on to something else. They’ll move on to gas, they’ll move on to wind.”

Copyright 2014 Bloomberg

Perfect Example of Choosing the Wrong LED Solution in Wisconsin

While the efforts and good intentions of ThedaCare are noted, this is a perfect example of not doing the proper product comparison research before venturing into a large lighting investment.   

Would you purchase an LED fixture that, out of the box brand new it would be acceptable to have 15% of the individual light emitting diodes nonfunctional? Has a 5 year Limited Warranty? Has Light Loss factored into the design?

Link to Acuity LED Warranty: http://www.acuitybrands.com/customerresources/~/media/47683f8f2111411897f6084cc499dded.ashx

Comparison:

Our ActiveLED lighting fixtures guarantee 10 years / 90,000 hours of maintenance free, perfect light, with no fine print in our warranty.  

The Acuity brand LED lighting that was chosen for ThedaCare is "projected" (not guaranteed) to have 100,000 hours of life (IMO they will be lucky if they make it to even 50,000 hours before complete failure).

Our ActiveLED fixtures warranty/guarantee that at 90,000 hours of use, our lights will still be operating as pristine as they did the first day they were installed.  We fully expect our fixtures to surpass 200,000 hours of usable life if not more.  

Acuity fixture for this project uses 158 watts.

ActiveLED fixture would provide the same light using only 75 watts.  

Conclusion:

ActiveLED would more the quadruple the long term savings while providing an ROI in about half of the time.  I predict ThedaCare will be replacing all of these fixtures again withing 3-5 years.  

American craftsmanship + American ingenuity = The #1 lighting solution in the world. ActiveLED.  

Please contact Solar LED Alliance with any questions or for information on our industry leading lighting solutions.  

Note:

I will follow the success or failure of the Acuity LED's and update this post regularly.  

________________________________________________________________________

August 7, 2014

By Maury Wright 
Editor in Chief, LEDs Magazine and Illumination in Focus

The ThedaCare Health System located in Wisconsin has been a leader in sustainability initiatives and late last year also recognized that outdoor area lighting at a number of its facilities were in need of an upgrade -- both due to excessive maintenance requirements and uneven light quality. The organization has performed a thorough evaluation of LED lighting and upgraded two of its facilities to solid-state lighting (SSL). The healthcare provider projects $40,000 annually in electrical and maintenance savings based on its first outdoor SSL projects.

BEFORE

AFTER

The ThedaCare outdoor areas and parking lots have been lit by a mix of metal-halide (MH) and high-pressure sodium (HPS) lighting with the result being non-uniform light levels and disparate color temperatures as the top photo illustrates. The light quality caused concerns across the organization. "Security staff was very concerned about light levels for safety," said Steve Jencks, construction project manager for ThedaCare. "They wanted to make sure the new lighting would provide better visibility both on-site, as well as through security cameras."

And of course energy conservation was also a concern. "From my perspective, healthcare organizations must lead the way in reducing fossil fuels," said ThedaCare sustainability leader Paul Linzmeyer. "The first thing we are working on is to reduce demand. If we reduce demand, that is less pollution going into the environment. While some of sustainability work is about saving money, it is really about reducing the amount of greenhouse gases going into the environment. Healthcare's first obligation should be to do no harm to our environment -- for health and safety reasons."

The organization turned its attention to two of more than 30 hospitals and facilities in Wisconsin. The Theda Clark and Appleton Medical Center (AMC) have large parking lots measuring 861,000 and 916,000 ft², respectively. Moreover, the Theda Clark facility is adjacent to a residential area and had generated complaints about light pollution.

ThedaCare partnered with Elan Lighting to evaluate the impact that a lighting retrofit might have o the operational costs. The analysis revealed that lighting would deliver relatively quick return on investment (ROI) and identified LED lighting as the most efficient option. "LEDs are the best solution right now for lighting in general," said Mark Zelten, application and sales manager at Elan Lighting. "It is certainly going to be the light source for decades to come. LED was the way to go for the Theda Clark and AMC campuses, and we wanted to maximize their investment."

Still, the organization wanted assurance that the SSL option would deliver on its quality goals. ThedaCare and Elan Lighting worked together to select the Acuity D-Series LED luminaires from the Lithonia Lighting brand. The project primarily relied on the area lights for parking lights although it also includes lesser numbers of D-Series wall packs, flood lights, and parking garage luminaires.

The first two projects will deliver numerous benefits. The lumen output and uniform beam of the LED products allowed the organization to reduce the total number of luminaires. For instance, at the Theda Clark facility, 60 LED luminaires replaced 84 legacy fixtures.

Still, the lighting is much improved. "You can see a vast difference between newly lit lots with a more even distribution, and the yellow from the old lights that cast an ugly glow," explained Jencks. "When we have foggy, frosty mornings, you can really tell the improvement of the LED."

The light-spill problem was also mitigated. "The new lighting in the parking ramp at the AMC campus looks very nice at night," said Jamie Coenen, a ThedaCare security officer at AMC. "The new lighting is not too bright for the neighboring houses and makes it so much easier to see inside the ramp. The lights are mounted high enough that it does not affect your sight or disperse light outside of the ramp."

In the Theda Clark project alone, the healthcare provider projects that its will save $89,500 in energy costs and $58,600 in maintenance costs over ten years. Meanwhile, the LED lighting is projected for 10,000 hours of life. The projected ROI is five years.

Meet Harley Davidson's First Electric Motorcycle

Harley-Davidson Project Livewire 

Courtesy Harley-Davidson




For 111 years, the Harley Davidson has been known for many things—freedom, leather, and, most of all, its rumbling V-twin engine. This summer, Harley took a step in a new, quieter direction when it introduced Project Livewire, its first battery-powered bike. The Livewire has a lightweight aluminum frame rather than the classic tubular-steel version, and a 74-horsepower electric motor. With nearly 100 percent of its 52 foot-pounds of torque available instantly, it can hit 60 mph in under four seconds. 

Several niche companies have marketed electric bikes over the past few years, but Harley’s entry into the market is telling. The manufacturer sees the technology as a way to court new riders. This fall, before the motorcycle goes into production, Harley will take it on a tour of 30 dealers on both coasts to get feedback. If customers approve, the company will sell the bike, or some version of it—a move that could shape the industry for years to come. What remains uncertain: Can anyone still rock a bandanna on a plug-in?

Harley-Davidson Project LiveWire

Engine: Clutch-less electric motor

Horsepower: 74

Fuel economy: n/a

Price: n/a

Range: 53 miles

Charge time: 3.5 hours from a 220-volt outlet

Top Speed: 92 mph

Car News You Should Care About

1) Ford will add adaptive steering into some models in 2015. The technology, thus far limited to luxury vehicles, varies the steering ratio with the speed, making parking easier and adding stability at high speeds.

2) Toyota has donated 208 used Camry Hybrid batteries to Yellowstone National Park, which when paired with solar panels and onsite micro-hydro turbine systems will power a cluster of five remote outbuildings. 

3) San Francisco startup Cruise Automation is making a $10,000 sensor system (due out next year) that mounts to the roof of Audi A4 and S4 sedans, and enables semi-autonomous driving on highways.

4) Honda has started using 3-D visualization technology co-developed with tech firm 3DX CITE for crash simulations. Originally created for animated film, the software also allows for easier design changes.

This article originally appeared in the September 2014 issue of Popular Science.

http://www.popsci.com/article/cars/meet-harley-davidsons-first-electric-motorcycle

Not All LED Lights Are Created Equal

This article is an introduction to the world of LED Lighting and Controls. I will follow-up with more articles specific to various lighting and control issues that you may have in your environment. The technology discussed is truly leading to a sustainable lighting environment guiding away from the consumption model.

In 2007 anyone who could put a white LED onto a Printed Circuit Board tried to sell a light bulb replacement. Having been involved with laser diode design and in specific blue lasers in their early stages I had a high curiosity whether those devices could replace the light bulb or fluorescent tube.

Like others we attempted to make a light bulb replacement only to find out that the cost of the technology is still very high and in order to justify that cost the device would have to be more efficient than a fluorescent tube and keep its light output for a very long time to get a return of investment.

Deeply understanding the quantum physics involved I knew that the junction where the light is created, that is deep in the solid state structure, had to be kept rather cool to not get damaged over time by heat and to perform with high-efficiency.

When we saw all players not to care about efficiency or keeping their devices cool but try to develop a light bulb with a slightly longer life but not too much longer, the opportunity arose to make a very long-lasting light fixture. We are talking 10 years plus without light degradation or change in color.

Fortunately we also came from the networking arena so we developed a protocol of communication between the light fixtures that allows uniform dimming over an infinite number of devices by one low-cost dimming device.

Imagine that in future a supermarket does not have to change its' light fixtures every 3 years but can leave them in place for 15 years or more, no more light bulbs or tubes to be replaced and have no light loss.

Oh by the way, LEDs do not have Mercury like fluorescent tubes and "Energy Saving" lamps. The wattage on the fixture is the actual wattage consumed unlike your "Energy Saver" bulb that consumes between 30% and 50% more energy than advertised.

To further cement commitment to the environment manufacturers should recycle all their product as long as the user finds a way to get it to a recycling center and guarantee to pay back to the customer a recycling value on return.

However, it is difficult for the non-specialist person to understand that not all LED devices are created equal and to recognize what is marketing hype and what is real. The DOE or Energy Star are not helping as they lag years behind technology and generally support the consumption model brands rather than lasting and really efficient technology to the point of being hostile to new and better technologies.

Klaus Bollmann is a 30 year veteran in energy conservation, resource saving innovative products for a sustainable environment. Click the link If you are interested in ActiveLED high performance lighting products. All parts of ActiveLED light fixtures are 100% recyclable and in fact the aluminum used in ActiveLED lights is 100% recycled aluminum.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Klaus_Bollmann

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7104043