A new technology building design should link up with all kinds of fascinating LED lighting. LED illumination is now a routine part of architectural design.
All lighting used for illuminating built-up environments, and mood creation, colour is one of the important stimulant to the brain for attraction, creating either warm or cold atmosphere with a simple touch of a switch or remote control. Where the integration of light sources and architectural elements is critical, is architectural lighting. Lighting can be functional or decorative for the purposes of creating ambience. Architectural lighting is used both indoors and outdoors. Most of those sophisticated drivers are crucial in architectural lighting. Especially outdoor architectural applications where fixtures are exposed to drastic temperature variations, LED performs better than other competing technologies, especially in cold temperatures.
Architectural fixtures are used in high-end homes and in retail environments such as malls, car parks and shopping centers.
HB LEDs and Hi power LEDs
High brightness LED is normally describing LED with Luminous Efficacy of more than 65-70 Lumens/Watt.
Most of the LED people s describing high power LED of more than 1Watt power Electrical power apply to the LED.
Except for applications that require very high lumen output, LED lighting is ideal for architectural applications that require design flexibility, that are in places where they are difficult to reach and maintain, or that require color. White light LEDs, however, have not produced enough lumen output to make them competitive with many general light sources other than as accent lights. Since 2006, most of the top LED technology leaders Cree, Nichia, Avago, Lumileds, Osram, Toyoda Gosei, Sharp and Citizen have been spending tremendous effort in producing high output LED, made a lot of patents of new process and material, breakthrough in producing more reliable cost effective LED with new aged manufacturing equipment. Thanks to the LED equipment suppliers that go in par in supplying the sophisticated assembly equipment with High UPH die bonder. The UPH has been treble in ten years and die placement accuracy is attaining the IC assembly class of 10 micron range.
In 2008, many high-brightness white LED fixture manufacturers have been beginning mass manufacturing. Depending on the investment climate in 2009, if the planned capacity creation takes place, LED lighting fixtures are likely to offer feasible energy-efficient alternate solutions.
Solid State Lighting using LEDs
Solid-state lighting offers options for single or multiple colors, including color changing. With digital multiplex controllers, it is possible to make light dance to music. This combination of digital media and lighting has led to new disciplines, so called architainment and mediatecture is bringing buildings with more functional and at the same time, stylish. The illumination is both interactive and controllable. The color-changing fixtures offered by the participants in this market require some customization and an investment in the control infrastructure. Since the lumen output of LED white light is not quite adequate for high-intensity white light applications, the most popular LED fixtures for architectural lighting are wall washers of different colors or in color-changing configurations, accent lights, path markers, steplights, and linear fixtures for cove lighting. The high-intensity color light applications are also possible with LEDs when a beam of intense saturated color light can light up walls as high as 400 feet. The efficiency and lumen output of cool white LEDs improved in 2007−2008, and white spotlights are used for accent lighting.
Market Trend
The LED illumination market in architectural applications is dominated by early adopters. Less than 5% of the potential architectural applications being specified in 2006 used LED fixtures. Around 9% in 2007, 14% in 2008. By 2012, Estimated almost 30% of the potential applications will have converted to LEDs.
Typical solid-state architectural lighting fixtures include:
· Accent lights
· Corridor lights
· Cove lights
· Door light
· In-ground lights
· Floodlights
· Flexible rope lights or festoon lights
· Pool and spa lights
· Path lights
· Steplights
· Spotlights
· Striplights
· Wall washers
Lighting DesignLED Lighting application has been elevated to being a chapter of architectural design. Although once considered a luxury, LED lighting design is now a routine part of architectural design. The building facade can become an interactive light source to reflect the mood, the weather, the occasion, a style, landmark, an Attraction and a unique presence in a crowded urban environment. Lighting using LED is not an industrial scale until recently that the LED manufacturing facilities become a cost justifiable level as the equipment is having the t output per dollar.
LED City
Lighting provides an added dimension of nighttime experience to architecture. Architects and city managers are aware of the importance of lighting to the image of a place to attract tourists and businesses. As cities vie to improve the business climate, lighting enhances the appeal of the urban environment. The urban look at night is an important aspect of this effort. Thus, many large architectural lighting projects are undertaken by local government agencies. There are a few LED cities which is not juts a gadget but also a true new way to promote the latest techimlogy to be adapted in the every day’s application. With Support form the LED makwers and local Government, these are the typcal LED City Raliegh, TianJin and Toronto.
In major municipal building exterior illumination, Car park, Traffic lights, street lamps are mostly been replaced with LED lamps.
Previously, large projects were beyond the scope of LED lighting, especially in applications requiring large lumen output. As LEDs have gotten brighter, especially since 2005, these projects have been within the purview of LED applications.
European Government influence
On December 8, 2008, EU Member States' experts endorsed the European Commission's proposals for a regulation progressively phasing out incandescent bulbs starting in 2009 and finishing at the end of 2012.The regulation (scheduled for formal adoption by the Commission in March 2009) targets lamps typically used in households - in particular incandescent lamps, halogen lamps and compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) - by setting minimum energy efficiency and functionality requirements.Beginning in September 2009, all non-clear (frosted) incandescent lamps and all clear incandescent lamps at 100W and above will effectively be prohibited from sale. The staged phase-out process will then remove lower-power incandescent from the market as well.
An EU document entitled "Phasing out incandescent bulbs in the EU - Technical briefing" describes LEDs as "a fast-emerging technology, whose efficacy competes with that of CFLs. However, LEDs for room illumination are today only in the first phases of commercialization, and rare are those that fulfill all the expectations of the consumers in terms of light output and other functionalities. They are likely to become true alternatives to CFLs very rapidly."In the meantime, however, CFLs are the forefront the EU's plans to enhance the adoption of energy-efficient lighting.
The EU's decision has been applauded by the European lighting giants Philips and Osram, the world's two largest lighting companies.The effect of the EU's decision on LEDs is yet to be determined. On one hand, it could accelerate the adoption of LED lamps as customers look for energy-efficient lighting products that do not have the same deficiencies as CFLs.However, LED lamps in general have not yet reached the necessary price-performance point to compete effectively in the market. Pushing inferior or expensive products into the market could create a negative perception among consumers, which could be difficult to shake off. Nowadays a good quality LED replacement light buld is in the range fo USD50.00, and we seea lot of White BOX LED makes having their prodict selling in the range ot USD10.00, we do not know how long it could last and how fast the LED will be aged and losing their lighting performance over time.Another factor is that CFLs will be forced to improve rapidly, in turn reducing the advantage of switching to LEDs, although most people agree that LEDs will be the solution for most lighting applications in the longer term.
US Government influence
In US, it is suggested in 2012-2014 to phase out 40W-100W incandescent bulbs.
There is an act called Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA).
In EISA 2007, it doesn’t mean phasing out incandescent lamp but phasing in min. lighting requirements around amount of light delivered per unit of energy consumed. For the same lumen output, the minimum requirements represent a reduction of 25% over the incandescent technology in use in 2007.
If this rulemaking cannot produce savings that are greater than or equal to the savings from a minimum efficacy standard of 45 lumens per watt, effective January 1, 2020, then the Secretary shall prohibit the sale of any general service lamp that does not meet a minimum efficacy standard of 45 lumens per watt.
Overall Luminous Efficiency
Incandescent lamp is having Luminous Efficacy of 0.7%-5.1% depending on the design and wattage of the light bulb, Fluorescent light is having a much high efficiency such as 9-26W compact Fluorescent lamp is 9-11%. However, LED is in the range of 20-27% which is two time higher. Well, the technology is non-stopping, thousands of scientists are seeking on numerous way to increasing the lighting Luminous efficiency by employing the following improvement. The target of more than 60% is not a dream one day as we can see that there is huge R&D team has been working on.
Chip material
AC LED design
Packaging technology
Chip Design
Novel Process
Thermal management
Lead frame material
CTE balance
Phosphor efficiency
Phosphor spraying
Phosphor application
Material Studies
Driver design and power supply
Market Size.
Architectural lighting is the largest application for LEDs in illumination and will remain so throughout the forecast period. The vast majority of applications to date have involved color, and color will be a continuing growth driver for LED use, but white LEDs will become an increasingly important factor in future years. The percentage of white will increase from 19% in 2007 to 62% of the total revenues in architectural applications in 2012 if the brightness and market availability of white LEDs continue their progress along the projected trajectory.
LEDs have changed the way lighting designers view architectural lighting. The availability of color and the long life of LEDs have made it attractive for lighting designers to incorporate LEDs into their designs.
Increasingly, outdoor architectural applications, such as path lights, in-ground uplights, and steplights − all low-level white light applications – will be adopting LEDs. The lower cost of ownership will drive the growth for these applications.
For the higher-lumen-output applications, two factors will affect the rate of adoption. One is the lumen output of the devices and fixtures. There are many applications that require bright white light, such as floodlights, illuminating path lights, etc. The other factor is the energy efficiency of the fixtures – lumens per watt. The higher efficiencies, compared to alternative lighting technologies, will lower the cost of ownership in the fixture. As the price of white LEDs declines, the number of applications for architectural lighting, such as architectural spots and large-area wall washers, is likely to grow. If the luminous efficacy of LED fixtures gets better than 70 lm/W, LEDs will become competitive for their energy efficiency.
Market Structure
Architectural LED fixtures are specification-grade products with very few fixture models in volume production. Architectural lighting is not a mass market, but rather a semi-custom business in which lighting systems are often designed for particular projects. Many product ideas evolve in the process of custom projects executed by the fixture manufacturers. The fixtures are sold through specifiers and lighting design companies. These fixtures are always sold as a part of lighting systems that include drivers, control systems, and control software. There are many resellers in the market. The resellers offer after sales services for configuration, installation, and maintenance of lighting systems. As LED technology is new, the users need a lot of education and support.
In 2007, the market for architectural lighting fixtures was dominated by color and color-changing fixtures. However, in 2008 there were more outdoor architectural products using white LEDs, such as path lights, steplights, in-ground recessed lamps, and bollards. These fixtures are specification-grade and are sold in the higher price range. Architectural lighting companies reported more sales from projects than through sales of catalog products.
LED lighting is competing with other entrenched technologies, such as incandescent, Fluorescent and HID lamps, on the basis of the cost of the light fixture as measured in terms of lumens per dollar. In applications where color and color changing is an important issue, price per lumen may not be the most important criterion. Between the different LED fixture suppliers, the design of the fixture differentiates the competitors. LED architectural lighting fixtures have very little esthetic design component except for path lights, bollards, and some accent lights. However, the engineering design and reliability of the fixture is a competitive issue.
Lighting Fixture Players
In North America, Hubbell, Genlyte, Acuity, Cooper, Cree LED lighting solutions and Juno had a few low-key LED product introductions. The companies would like to introduce products that can have a wide range of market appeal. All the companies have started R&D efforts and have collaborated with LED start-ups for technology and will be seriously considering entering this market in the near future. Color Kinetics (now Philips Solid-State Lighting Solutions), a dedicated LED company, is the largest player in the market and was bought by Philips, as was TIR. Color Kinetics, the leader in architectural color and color-changing fixtures, sells fixtures to end users and light engines to OEMs. The rest of the market consists of smaller companies such as Permlight, Lighting Science, and Nexxus.
In Europe, Zumtobel Group is the largest lighting fixture supplier, but it produces just a small volume of LED architectural lighting products, mainly in the form of accent lights and small spotlights. The other major players in this market are Artemide, ERCO, i-Led, Targetti, iGuzzini, Space Cannon, Martin Professional and Spectral.
Reference: Architecture Lighting companies
http://www.lightingdirectory.com/sub-cats/id/1/architectural-lighting
