When will the energy industry realize the full potential of LED?
(Zondits, 1 Dec 2016) LED chip manufacturing continues to make major breakthroughs in both cost and performance. How and when will the energy efficiency industry realize the full potential of LEDs?
My time doing market research in the semiconductor industry was one of the most fascinating phases of my career so far. As an “energy” guy at heart, I was most drawn to the “compound semiconductor” space with rapid advances in power electronics (driven by advances in SiC) and LED chips. LED especially ‒ from sapphire crystal growth (the LED substrate of choice) to LED chip manufacturing to the lighting industry, the whole value chain was on fire. As the LED chip manufacturers ran headlong into an installed base and an overly cautious building industry, that friction just added more heat.
That was 8 years ago. High brightness LED (HB-LED) chip development was driven by flat screen TVs and PC displays, while revenue related to general lighting lagged seriously at around $0.5B. I still follow the news in Semiconductor Today because it matters to our industry. LED chip manufacturing has continued to make major breakthroughs in cost and performance , and the projections in the article below have HB-LED chip revenues hitting $13B with associated lighting sales (that’s our space, folks) reaching $40B in 2017. While this is exciting news, for me it brings forth what I have always said: As an industry we are still too cautious and are not realizing the full potential of LED. Until we insist that every LED installation include advanced controls we are only getting a small portion of the savings that we should. One of the first articles I posted on Zondits made that point. The LED chip industry is doing its part – it is up to all of us to do ours!
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Zondits, 1 Dec 2016: When will the energy industry realize the full potential of LED?