The LED lighting industry continues to evolve and define itself. Replacing filament technologies like incandescent, halogen and gas technology like CFL with LED based Lighting sources in residential and commercial lamps and luminaires have a clear energy consumption advantage. LED lamps and luminaires, in theory, have a much longer life than the aforementioned technologies. Therefore, the total cost of ownership (purchase cost plus operating cost) will be lower for LED lamps vs. traditional technologies including other benefits like lack of lead and mercury should make LED lighting the undeniable choice for consumers. The general public is not yet armed with the information necessary to make a proper decision on lighting products. Also, since LED lighting is a relatively new technology, consumers need reinforcement of the LED lighting value proposition.
Although LED lighting products can outperform traditional light technology in terms of color quality, flicker and lifetime there are many available products that do not meet the quality LED lighting can achieve. To exacerbate this problem, the quality LED lighting products in MR16, A19 and PAR20/30/38 formats (designed and manufactured by innovators in LED lighting) are not readily available at the retail level for the end consumer. It should be noted that equally good and bad LED lighting products come from every region of the globe. The good news is the lighting industry is aware of these issues and is collectively collaborating to ensure the consumer has a gratifying experience as the transition to LED lighting technology occurs.
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is the leading this collaborative effort for solid state lighting with several programs aimed at ensuring quality light products reach form manufacturers reach the end user. The DOE is working across the industry with research, design, manufacturing and retail organization to produce specifications for lighting standards (examples are the LM79, LM80, and NEMA’s dimming specification). One specific consumer oriented result of the DOE SSL effort the Lighting Facts TM label that will clearly announce the brightness (in Lumens), the Estimated yearly energy cost (in $ - based on 3 hours of use per day @ 11 ¢/kWh), Lifetime (in years based on 3hours of use per day) and total energy Used (in Watts). Also, the DOE is sponsoring an education program to help consumers shift to better understand the more energy efficient LED lighting technology. The program will focus on educating consumers, which the industry has spent the last 117 years conditioning to think of brightness in terms of watts, to think about brightness in terms of lumens or light output. Major lighting manufactures and hardware retail giants are the charter members of the SSL education program. More than just low cost is required to make LED lighting a consumer alternative. It is heartening to see the industry recognizes this and is working at making this a reality.
