The world market for lighting fixtures is worth around 80 billion USD (not including lamps, components, controls) and it shows a yearly rate of growth of 7%… not bad in these days. New additional market drivers will sustain this growth: demographic issues (old people need more light…), climate change and environmental protection, safety & security (for example street lighting). It is a fragmented market, with around 500 “regional leaders” and at least 4000 relevant players on a total of some 30,000 and it could become even more fragmented as the entry barriers in the sector are going down. Due to LED technology, the market of lighting fixtures is currently experiencing a true revolution in the supply chain. Probably an increasing fragmentation of the market will be avoided through a process of better certification and standardization. To create the maximum benefit for LED lighting and avoid that LED lighting only focuses on energy savings, the framework of Standards and Regulations needs to be adapted.
NEED OF APPROPRIATE STANDARDS
What about the expected LED share for tomorrow? There are different forecasts on the field. CSIL estimates a prudent 22% of the market for the year 2015. In part it depends on the cost of LED. To be reminded: CFL (Compact Fluorescent Light) started in 1985 and it took 25 years to reach a penetration rate of 25%, even with standards available. Leading packaged LED suppliers are today LG Innotek, Cree, Lumileds, Seoul Semiconductor, Samsung LED, Osram, Nichia. Smaller players hold almost 50% of the market. Maybe that a fragmented market of packaged LEDs will push prices down, but in the meantime the risk is that of less long term investments and poor quality of the end product. It could even come to a stop in the growth of this market: without appropriate standards, high consumer dissatisfaction should be unavoidable. “Lighting” is the future for all players operating in the market of packaged LED, as other applications (such as White LED for mobile telecommunications, TVs or notebooks) are already mature.
A NEW SUPPLY CHAIN
With LEDs, the border between lamps and luminaires becomes less clear. The worldwide market of lamps is estimated equal to 18 billion units and it has been pretty stable in these last years. Now the scenario depicts a market with much less units (it is reported some 10 billion units for the year 2020), probably more expensive but with a longer lifetime. Incandescence phase is going out at different speed in each country but the trend is there.
Incandescence is totally banned in Australia and it will be soon limited to 40-60W in North America and China. Prices of the LED lamps are decreasing month by month (today is some 10-75 USD range), although not so fast as expected.
WHAT’S NEW ON THE EUROPEAN HORIZON?
The EU target for 2020 (“Digital Agenda for Europe”) is an overall reduction of at least 20% in the use of lighting energy. EU Member States are encouraged to include total lifetime costs in their award criteria for public procurement of lighting installations. Actions can be made on different ways: R&D (for example on OLED), standardization and, last but not least, high performing intelligent lighting management systems. Due to quick technological changes, end users (municipalities, facility managers, etc) need advice on LED hardware, controls, etc. At today’s efficiency (lm/w) levels, industry is driving the coming years for a cost reduction instead of a further increase of efficiency: the biggest gain is made by switching from 60 to 12 watt, much bigger than from another jump from 12 to 10 watt (marginal decreasing benefits). There is also room for niche potential innovation: for example, museums and galleries can achieve a CRI (index of color rendering) that is quite high (it is said 95 to 98) and in the meantime capable of saving energy.
LIGHTING CONTROLS, TUNNEL AND TRANSPORT LIGHTING
Energy saving can also be achieved through lighting controls. Intelligent lighting systems are today in use in a very low percentage of buildings (3%- 8%). But some energy saving can be achieved through time regulation, and further savings (10%-40%) can be reached through daylight linking, presence detection, constant luminance level. Among increasingly large applications for LED lighting we can mention tunnels and transports. After turning to LEDs, 89% of people using the underground in Paris said that they prefer “the new light”. In France (350 tunnels for a total length of 320 km, 17 renovated tunnels per year) energy savings up to 40% are expected…but there will be additional costs for the laying process.
A NEW LABELING
The European Union is working on a new labeling for lighting. Energy labeling and ecodesign labeling should be directly applicable in all Member States from 1 September 2013. LED luminaires should be classified from A to A++. There are no separate labeling requirements for LED modules built into luminaires (only if they are sold on their own as parts).
Generally speaking, all ecodesign requirements referring to “LED lamps” are meant to include also LED modules. It can be useful to remind the “product tree”: from a LED die to a LED package, in turn to a Led light source (or LED light engine) made by a LED module and a LED control gear. In turn: a luminaires …or just a lamp (the distinction between light sources and luminaires disappears).