News Updates for the Week of June 13

1. Light Bulb Repeal Bill Stalls in Congress - A bill to repeal the banning of ordinary incandescent light bulbs is bottled up in a congressional committee despite Americans’ apparent distaste for the more expensive bulbs that would replace them. In January, Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton proposed the Better Use of Light Bulb (BULB) act, which would cancel the phase-out of incandescent bulbs. The bill has 62 co-sponsors, 61 of them Republicans, and a companion bill in the Senate has 28 co-sponsors. House Republican leadership has evinced no interest in bringing the Barton bill to the floor. 6/12 Newmax.com

2. Bulb In, Bulb Out - A multinational team of scientists has been making a mighty effort to change the light bulb. The prototype they’ve developed is four inches tall, with a familiar tapered shape, and unlighted, it resembles a neon yellow mushroom. Screw it in and switch it on, though, and it blazes with a voluptuous radiance. It represents what people within the lighting industry often call their holy grail, an invention that reproduces the soft luminance of the incandescent bulb — Thomas Edison’s century-old technology — but conforms to much higher standards of energy efficiency and durability. The prototype is supposed to last for more than 22 years, maybe as long as you own your house, so you won’t need to stock up at the supermarket. And that’s fortunate, because one day very soon, traditional incandescent bulbs won’t be available in stores anymore. They’re about to be effectively outlawed. 6/3 NY Times

3. DOE Awards Nearly $15 Million For LED and OLED Research - Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced June 7 nearly $15 million to support eight new research and development projects that will accelerate the development and deployment of high-efficiency solid-state lighting technologies like LEDs and OLEDs. Projects have been selected in the following three areas:

Core Technology Research ($4.3 million)

• Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ) - $664,785
• Research Triangle Institute (Research Triangle Park, NC) - $1,699,318
• Soraa Inc. (Goleta, CA) - $678,257
• University of Rochester (Rochester, NY) - $1,247,881

Product Development ($3.6 million)

• Cree, Inc. (Goleta, CA) - $1,610,681
• Philips Lumileds Lighting Company, LLC (San Jose, CA) - $1,987,200

SSL Manufacturing ($6.9 million)

• Moser Baer Technologies, Inc. (Canandaigua, NY) - $2,906,324
• Veeco Instruments (Plainview, NY) - $4,000,000
• http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/progress_alerts.cfm/pa_id=541

To learn more about energy efficient lighting efforts at the DOE http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/ssl/

4. Efficiency Maine: Is bigger better? - At the Formtek-Maine factory in Clinton, the orange hue from high-pressure sodium light bulbs has been replaced by the white light of 330 high-efficiency fluorescent tubes. The new lights have improved employees' morale and knocked $25,000 off the plant's annual electricity bill. Formtek-Maine is one of more than 3,000 businesses that have received rebates from Efficiency Maine for energy-saving improvements since the Legislature created the agency nine years ago. Many of those companies are now joining environmental groups to urge lawmakers to boost funding for the program over the next two years, from $28 million to $52 million. 6/5 Portland Press Herald http://www.efficiencymaine.com/

5. Advanced Lighting Products Reports by Freedonia - May 2011

• US demand for advanced lighting is forecast to surpass $10 billion by 2015 on annual increases of about eight percent. A government-mandated phaseout of less efficient general service lamps will drive gains in the residential market, while a trend toward energy-efficient lighting will fuel growth in other markets.
• Through 2015, demand for LEDs will post the fastest gains, spurred in part by their replacement of general service incandescent lamps. Improvements in power and quality of light coupled with a dramatic decrease in the price of LEDs will greatly expand their use in general lighting applications. Products such as CFLs, halogen lamps, and LEDs stand to benefit the most. By 2015, CFLs will lead the residential market for advanced lighting in terms of units. In the long run, US residential demand for advanced lighting is forecast to shift away from CFLs toward LEDs.
• Though advanced lighting products already account for a majority of the lighting used in motor vehicles, the motor vehicle market has been gradually moving away from the use of halogen lamps in favor of metal halide lamps and LEDs. Metal halide lamps, used predominantly as headlights. LEDs, which are just beginning to find use in headlights, will benefit from growth in the production of electric powered vehicles, as highly efficient LED headlights can extend an electric vehicle’s range. http://www.reportbuyer.com/industry_manufacturing/lighting/advanced_lighting_products.html

6. Osram Plans to Stay the Course on R&D and Acquisitions - To build on its base as the second-largest player in an industry that’s expected to grow 44 percent to $94.4 billion by 2016, Osram Sylvania will continue acquiring other lighting companies and pumping millions into R&D. According to this Bloomberg article, Wolfgang Dehen, Osram’s CEO, said the company would continue spending an average of 5.5 percent of sales on R&D, slightly less than what market leader Royal Philips Electronics NV spends annually on R&D. 6/9 http://livewire.electricalmarketing.com/

7. Osram Targets Samsung and LG With LED Patent Litigation - The two largest Korea-based LED manufacturers are the subject of LED patent litigation that claims infringement of patents owned by Osram Opto Semiconductors. Osram claims that Samsung and LG group companies infringe its patents on white LEDs and surface-mountable LEDs in the US, Germany and, as far as LG is concerned, in Japan and China. 6/6 LED Magazine

8. Top 200 Distributors Say Lighting Retrofits and MRO Business Could Lead Recovery - Top 200 electrical distributors are starting to see pockets of growth in some key segments of the market. Few respondents had yet seen much growth in the residential market or in non-residential construction, but industrially oriented distributors said the industrial MRO business is starting to shine. Industrially-oriented distributors and distributors that focus on the green market and in particular lighting retrofits were among the most bullish distributors, according to data compiled for the 2011 Top 200 Electrical Distributors, which EW will publish later this month. http://electricalmarketing.com/