Global LED prices are falling rapidly
Take the US lighting market as an example. According to the general industry’s perception, new light sources must enter the general lighting market at a cost of at least $5 per thousand lumens to be relatively competitive. Therefore, between 2012 and 2013, the cost of LED lighting Will be comparable to traditional light sources. If the luminous efficiency of LEDs is as estimated by the U.S. Energy Administration, by 2015, LEDs will only have $2 per thousand lumens left, and the chances of cutting into different lighting locations will inevitably increase.
Since the development of LED lighting, some manufacturers have introduced LEDs with luminous efficiency above 130 lumens per watt. If the current average luminaire efficiency is estimated to be 50~70%, the total efficiency of LED lighting fixtures is at least 65 lumens per watt. For accent lighting, or replacement of banned incandescent lamps, they are already qualified to enter the market. At present, the American giant Cree (Cree) is the most proud of its achievements. The company announced in early December 2009 that the luminous efficiency of white light LEDs has reached 186 lumens per watt. In the third quarter, we began to provide customers with products with a total luminous flux of 139 lumens and a luminous efficiency of 132 lumens per watt.
As for Nichia, Nichia announced that it has successfully developed a low-power white LED chip with the highest luminous flux in the industry. The white light LED released by Nichia has a luminous efficiency of 249 lumens per watt at a current of 20 mA, which is the highest in the industry. Nichia has always maintained a leading global position in the development of low-power LEDs. In December 2006, the company’s luminous efficiency reached 150 lumens per watt, and in September 2007 it reached 169 lumens per watt. 249 lumens.
Compared with other traditional light source technologies that have matured, LED luminous efficiency still has room for improvement. If we analyze the technology development of various manufacturers at this stage, although in 2009, only Cree could provide products with 132 lumens per watt, According to the US Department of Energy (DOE) forecast, in 2015, the luminous efficiency of LED monomers has the opportunity to increase to 188 lumens per watt, and the warm light part also has the opportunity to reach 138 lumens per watt. If you add the overall lighting efficiency of the lamps, by then The opportunity for LEDs to become general lighting has been relatively improved. From the perspective of lighting costs, compared with fluorescent lamps, energy-saving lamps, incandescent bulbs and high-intensity discharge (HID), the unit cost of traditional light sources has no room to drop compared to LED lamps, and LED light sources range from 4,100 to 6,500K The cost estimate of the company can be from about 25 US dollars per thousand lumens in 2009, a sharp drop of more than 90%, reaching the level of 2 US dollars per thousand lumens.
For entering the indirect lighting or final main lighting market, in addition to the need to improve the technology of LED itself, the price drop, the improvement of lamp efficiency and the advantages of traditional light sources are all problems that LED lighting must face in the future.
According to the analysis of the Optoelectronics Association (PIDA), LED will play the role of local lighting or key lighting at this stage. It is estimated that LED will have the opportunity to cut into indirect lighting in 2013, but if LED TV can be accepted by the market in the past 1-2 years, As the price of LED components expands in the economic scale of the industry, the cost will drop rapidly, and the timing of serving as the main lighting source is expected to happen ahead of schedule.
