Seattle—NOV 17, 2009--Dr James Brodrick, Ph.D. was the keynote speaker at the 2009 IES Annual Conference held this week in Seattle. He explained that there is a $280 billion potential savings in the next 30 years by switching to Solid State Lighting.  If that is true, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the DOE’s present program.   

Dr. Brodrick told the audience that the most recent CALiPER report was released last week.  He said to thinks of CALiPER as Consumer Reports.   That analogy might work if Consumer Reports were owned by the Government and only allowed to tests automobiles with hydrogen fuel cells and had to ignore more efficient (and far less costly) hybrid engines.   His comparison to Consumer Reports is a dangerous analogy because Consumer Reports has a reputation of staunch independence—beholden to no one.  CALiPER is beholden to the DOE which has a mandate to promote LED technology.    

Below are a few of the lowlights from the CALiPER study which Dr. Brodrick cited:   

• With one test, 33% of the products had accurate claims, 33% had claims that were overstated, and the last 33% were grossly exaggerated

• Seven downlights were tested; four of the downlights received a “no” for accurate reporting. 

• Nine small replacement lamps such as MR16, PAR and R replacements were tested.  While efficacy has increased, the majority did not achieve comparable light output to the legacy sources.

• Regarding four-foot linear products, the tests conclude that the LED replacements have either half of the light output or half of the luminaire efficacy.

Speakers at the IES conference are repeatedly cautioned to give generic updates on technology and to not give commercials for their companies or organizations.  IES has made great strides in enforcing this policy over the last several years.  Obviously, this does not apply to the DOE.  As a government agency, they have no competition.  Some conference speakers use the provided IES template for their powerpoint presentations, others use generic templates.  Dr. Brodrick chose the IES template and I wish he had not.  When I think of IES, I think of peer review and consensus based recommended practices.  With DOE, I think of the exact opposite.

Randy Reid, of LUXIM, asked that given the shortfalls which had just been presented, if DOE would ever consider funding sources other than LED.  Dr. Brodrick responded that DOE had a legal mandate to only work on SSL lighting.  However, he did discuss the SBIR program for small businesses, but the majority of SBIR funding is also applied to SSL. There were exceptions, one of which was an incandescent lamp project. 

Mr. Reid received applause from the audience for his question.  Dr. Brodrick did not receive applause for his response.

Other notes of interest:

• About every 6 months there is an improvement in LED technology.

• The CALiPER Testing  program conducts blind product purchases.  Sometimes they buy on-line or from a distributor.

• Companies are notified of the results and have two weeks to respond before the data is posted on the website. 

•  DOE has a basket of products that they compare year to year.  In 2007, the basket averaged 22 LPW, 35 LPW in 2008,and 41 in 2009

•  Round 9 has only been recently posted and already has 1500 downloads.

• While the upper range of LPW continues to climb, many fixtures are still below 20 LPW and the bottom LPW range of the business is only slightly improving

Konstantinos Papamichael, Director of the California Lighting Technology Center, asked if DOE had conducted any studies regarding the negative effect of LED’s on circadian rhythms. Dr. Brodrick replied that with his funding level, it was difficult to fund any studies on light and health.  He said, “There is a limit to what DOE can fund.”  He suggested,  the National Institute of Health would be the organization probably best suited for this study.

Another questioner asked about carbon footprint and recycling.  Dr. Brodrick explained that Carnegie Mellon is conducting a life cycle analysis test and has updates about every six months.   Per 1000 lumens, LED takes a little more energy to produce than CFL—however, that negative effect is negated when one looks at the energy savings of LED over CFL.  He emphasized that on balance, everything looks good for LED.    He admitted that there are quite nasty gasses used in LED production, but those are all conducted in ISO facilities so there is no real issue.  Regarding recycling, he said that it is not necessary because there is no mercury in LED. He went on to compare LED fixtures to the bumper of a car which is a metal alloy and very hard to separate.  The same thing is true with LED.  With all of the polymers, it would be difficult to recycle the material. 

In the early 80’s when your humble editor was a rookie at GE, leadership in Nela Park decided to conduct a HAY study.  We were required to log every single activity for one week.  HAY would compare this data to other industries to ensure work levels and compensation were properly distributed.  My Regional Manager, Wally Holtzinger, joked that HAY stood for “Help Assassinate Yourself” and to be very smart about what we told them.   His implication was that the data collected may end up in lost jobs.  If Dr. Brodrick worked in the private industry, he might research himself out of a job. 

At the Legislative and Regulatory committee meeting, there was concern about future DOE Mandates without input from IES.

Our hope is that DOE will follow the conclusions of their own research.  While LED technology offers tremendous energy savings in many applications, it is not right for all applications.  DOE should broaden its focus.