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By Rich Duprey
June 5, 2009 | Comments (1)
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Cree, Inc.
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How many Nobel laureates does it take to screw in a light bulb? We don't know because they're off painting rooftops with whitewash.
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel prize winner in physics, created a bit of a stir recently when he suggested that if we would all just paint our rooftops white -- and all the roadways and sidewalks, too -- we could eliminate the same amount of greenhouse gases as removing all the world's cars from the roads for 11 years.
Not a bad idea
A more practical idea might be to encourage more homeowners to get rid of their incandescent light bulbs. Compact fluorescents (CFL) could save consumers about $30 over the life of the bulb because they use 75% less energy and last about 10 times as long as standard bulbs. According to the federal government's Energy Star program, if every owner replaced just one bulb in their home, enough energy would be saved to light more than 3 million homes for a year, save more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent the emission of greenhouse gases equivalent to that of more than 800,000 cars.
Not quite on par with Chu's Tom Sawyer trick, but at least it's a workable idea.
At the end of the tunnel
According to research company Nielsen Claritas, 71% of consumers have at least one CFL installed in their home and 64% have two or more. Because Congress mandated that incandescents be eliminated by 2014, CFLs will be far more commonplace soon enough. Yet retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) and Costco (Nasdaq: COST) started the ball rolling already, and overall about 330 million bulbs are sold every year in the U.S. Even so, the Energy Department says that CFLs dropped to 21% of light bulb sales in 2008, down from 23% in 2007.
But in between the push for ecologically friendly devices and the market penetration of CFLs, there remains another opportunity -- solid-state light-emitting diodes, which are even better at saving energy than CFLs. LEDs, which are essentially tiny semiconductors, are twice as efficient and don't contain any of the mercury that CFLs do, so leaking harmful chemicals into the environment isn't a concern. CFL pollution has become a big-enough concern that Home Depot (NYSE: HD) started a bulb-recycling program last year.
Although you might want to dispose of LEDs in a manner similar to that of other electronic and computer components, their disposal is less of an issue, because they can last for decades.
That computes
The biggest market for LED lighting has been in commercial building applications, but computer backlighting has been gaining traction, and LED-backlit screens are predicted to become 30% to 40% of the notebook market in 2009.
LED chip maker Cree (Nasdaq: CREE) is looking to improve bookings -- specifically in the notebook backlighting area -- leading it to boost its guidance for its fiscal fourth-quarter revenue. And though the turmoil in the automobile market partially offset sales of LED components, the company was still able to increase revenue from that segment by 7% in the latest quarter. Earlier this year, Cree also forestalled similar problems.
Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG), the world's largest lighting manufacturer, also anticipates a better market. It says the LED market has reached a trough, and it forecasts sales at its Lumileds division will increase 20% next quarter. And you can't count out General Electric (NYSE: GE), either. Its Lumination division is using LEDs to brighten supermarket display cases at Wal-Mart, and its officials say eight of the top 10 supermarkets in the U.S. are already using or testing its system.
Don't fight City Hall
Considering that the federal stimulus program includes billions for municipal infrastructure, we should begin to see cities and towns converting to LED lighting. San Jose, Calif., is using some of its $8.8 million in that stimulus spending to convert street lights to LEDs, similar to what Siemens' (NYSE: SI) Osram division is doing in Hamburg, Germany. Similarly, as part of its LED City initiative, Cree has convinced Raleigh, N.C.; Austin, Texas; and other cities to use and evaluate LEDs in street lamps, parking garages, and municipal offices.
If you're looking to profit from the future of lighting, there's really only one option. Cree is the closest thing to a pure play in the field and one of the best of the bunch, but at more than 98 times earnings, its stock looks richly valued now. Of course, I thought it was too high back in January when it traded at "just" 36 times forward estimates and I recommended that investors wait for a dip in the price that never materialized. It has nearly doubled in price since then (ouch!), but that doesn't help me recommend shares now. Any hiccups along the way and it would be lights-out for the stock.
But there are worse things you could be doing than waiting for a better price: Painting your roof, for instance.
For related Foolish articles:
•Cree Sees the Light
•This Stock Is Lights Out
•LEDing the Way to Profits
Showing posts with label Cree. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cree. Show all posts
Monday, June 15, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
LED Lighting Gaining Acceptance (Sort Of)
April 30, 2009, 8:30 am
LED Lighting Gaining Acceptance (Sort Of)
By Eric A. Taub
The recent replacement of the incandescent lamps in Grand Central Terminal in New York with compact fluorescent bulbs notwithstanding, the lighting industry continues to believe that LEDs, not C.F.L.s, will eventually be the technology of choice for many lighting applications.
As I note in an article about the commercial use of LED lighting in today’s Business of Green special section, lighting designers who just one year ago were wary of recommending LED products now are much more confident in doing so.
That’s partly due to the move, spearheaded by the Department of Energy, to set Energy Star guidelines for the next generation of lighting to convince consumers and businesses that LED products will perform as claimed.
But it’s also due to the improvement of the lighting itself. LED lamps are becoming more efficient, producing warmer, more inviting colors at higher brightness levels.
On Tuesday, I was shown a new reflector lamp from Nexxus Lighting, similar to the type installed in many kitchen and office ceilings, that produced a warm, pleasing light. It weighs about one-third of a competing lamp and uses 8 watts to produce the light of a 50-watt bulb.
But how many homes and businesses are satisfied with 50-watt lamps? When the industry starts producing 75- and 100-watt equivalents, LEDs will begin to gain traction. (Cree, a lighting company, has announced a reflector lamp that it says produces a similar look to a halogen lamp, uses 12 watts, and can replace up to a 90-watt incandescent lamp.)
Are LED lamps ready for the consumer? Hardly. Most of the strange-looking LED products sold in home improvement stores remain below par. Many manufacturers make unsubstantiated claims about lamp life and brightness.
But for the well-heeled set, there are plenty of highly regarded products that use a fraction of the power of an incandescent bulb. But they come at a high initial price. I recently visited a home in the tony Brentwood section of Los Angeles that was entirely lit with LED “downlights” made by Cree, and I couldn’t tell the difference between the light from those fixtures and standard bulbs. And Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway scooter, has lighted the home he owns on a small island only with Color Kinetics LED products.
The Department of Energy is conducting a seminar in a few weeks to discuss the state of LED lamps that can replace standard incandescents. And more commercial buildings, including a wing of the Pentagon and even a KFC/Taco Bell restaurant, have switched over to the new technology.
But despite these successes, many engineers remain resistant to using LEDs. A major real estate developer in Los Angeles recently showed me correspondence from his engineering team questioning why anyone in his right mind would use LED lamps in a commercial project, citing high cost as a reason to eschew their use. For now, the lighting industry and the building industry often seem to be speaking different languages.
Company News, Green Technology, Innovations and Ideas, Technology and Society, Color Kinetics, Cree, LEDs, lighting Related Posts
From Bits
Dean Kamen’s ‘LED Nation’
Fluorescents Are So Over
Do TV Buyers Dream of Electric Sheep?
Do Energy-Saving LED Lamps Save Energy?
LED’s Good Housekeeping Seal
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Previous post
I.B.M. Pledges $2 Billion For Economic Recovery Gap
Next post
The $100 Million Mobile App Question
11 Comments
1. April 30, 2009
10:14 am
Link
It is just a matter of time. Taiwanese companies are spending significant sums to manufacture better and less expensive LED lighting. (By the way, I cannot believe that your copy editor let you write LED instead of L.E.D.)
All lighting should be evaluated on a TCO basis. And, for lighting, the equation is:
TCO = Initial cost + electricity costs over the lifetime of the “bulb” + labor to replace the bulb
That is why the first mass application for LED lighting was for traffic lights. The labor cost for replacement is HUGE (specialized truck, crew, length of time on site).
The problem for home use is twofold:
1. Labor cost is usually measured as $zero. The homeowner values his time at $zero and the lights are physically easy to replace.
2. Homeowners are very poor at calculating energy costs over a decade and therefore tend to cost them at near zero.
Once LEDs are 3x and not 7x the cost of halogens, we will see a much larger uptake by homeowners.
— Dave Barnes
2. April 30, 2009
1:27 pm
Link
the developers will always use the technology with low initial cost and higher lifecycle cost. This is simple economics.
But our society does not allow developers to build physically unsafe buildings and we should not allow them to build environmentally unsafe buildings either.
Mandate LEDs and the costs will fall as volume ramps up
CFLs are a health hazard - mercury, a safety hazard due to low initial lumens and should be banned from residential use
— dave
3. April 30, 2009
1:31 pm
Link
l. e. d.’s were installed in Portland Oregon traffic lights in furtherance of Portland’s maniacal plunge into assumed energy savings at any cost
During the first substantial snow fall, MOST OF THE TRAFFIC LIGHTS WENT OUT!
Our finest minds ultimately determined that the l. e. d.’s gave out insufficient heat to melt the snow and ice from the lenses.
But we will be alright until next winter..
— donovan Jacobs
4. April 30, 2009
2:32 pm
Link
I think people need to start buying them now. The initial price is well worth it for many reasons, including, the fact that no mercury is inside them (unlike compact fluorescents). The low wattage and long life is another reason (less power consumed, less in landfills). Also, the fact you are contributing (in a small way admittedly) to the price coming down for everyone by increasing demand. The same logic goes for buying organic cotton products.
— Ken
5. April 30, 2009
3:01 pm
Link
Luddites Against LED Lights!
— Bill Mahiger
6. April 30, 2009
3:36 pm
Link
By “warmer” light, do you mean that ugly yellow tinge that comes from incandescent bulbs? The color that made be go out and by compact fluorescents in the first place so that I could have white light? I don’t know why you would want that hideous effect.
— Adam
7. April 30, 2009
3:39 pm
Link
As an aside, L.E.D. lights are making huge headway in professional film and video applications. They are increasingly brighter, cheaper, and heat free.
I just returned from the NAB conference and was struck by the changes over last year.
Two vendors stand out:
Litepanels
http://www.s131567196.onlinehome.us/
and
Zylights
http://www.zylight.com/servlet/StoreFront
I would suspect the same technology to make inroads in
commercial locations.
— Elliot porter
8. April 30, 2009
5:36 pm
Link
Please , please , stop bleating about mercury in Compact Fluorescent bulbs. It is a minute amount.
For God”s sake find something worth worrying about.
Swine flu is a candidate.
— Bruce
9. April 30, 2009
5:37 pm
Link
donovan jacobs, then all Portland has to do is put hoods back on the lights (they shouldn’t have been taken off to begin with) as the older-style traffic lights had. And I’m in no way a ‘green hardliner.’
— Larry
10. April 30, 2009
6:36 pm
Link
Mandate LEDs? Whilst I sympathise with the intent, it is almost always a bad idea to manadate a particular solution. Instead, require a certain*performance*and allow any solution that meets that goal.
In this case, require a suitable lumens/watt and perhaps include some time-to-full-light and light spectrum benchmarks. If some clever company can produce the same light as a 100W incandescant with 0.1W by using rotating polarisation casimir phased doohickey quantulates why would we want to have a law demanding only LEDs?
— tim Rowledge
11. April 30, 2009
6:46 pm
Link
LED bulbs are better than CFL spiral fluorescents because:
1) they last 10 times as long before “burning out” (dimming to half brightness)
2) they don’t release mercury and don’t break
3) they take a little bit less energy than CFL and a lot less than regular incandescent.
On the other hand, LED bulbs cost as much as 50x the price of a CFL - literally $50 vs. $1. At that price the only justification is a savings in costly or dangerous labor such as having a union employee climb a tall ladder to replace the bulb.
For normal home lighting, switching from incandescent to fluorescent pays for itself in a month and can save literally hundreds of dollars a year. Switching to LEDs instead essentially takes all that savings and gives it to the LED bulb makers. LED bulbs do pay for themselves over a long enough time frame, but if your goal is saving money the right choice today is CFL.
LED Lighting Gaining Acceptance (Sort Of)
By Eric A. Taub
The recent replacement of the incandescent lamps in Grand Central Terminal in New York with compact fluorescent bulbs notwithstanding, the lighting industry continues to believe that LEDs, not C.F.L.s, will eventually be the technology of choice for many lighting applications.
As I note in an article about the commercial use of LED lighting in today’s Business of Green special section, lighting designers who just one year ago were wary of recommending LED products now are much more confident in doing so.
That’s partly due to the move, spearheaded by the Department of Energy, to set Energy Star guidelines for the next generation of lighting to convince consumers and businesses that LED products will perform as claimed.
But it’s also due to the improvement of the lighting itself. LED lamps are becoming more efficient, producing warmer, more inviting colors at higher brightness levels.
On Tuesday, I was shown a new reflector lamp from Nexxus Lighting, similar to the type installed in many kitchen and office ceilings, that produced a warm, pleasing light. It weighs about one-third of a competing lamp and uses 8 watts to produce the light of a 50-watt bulb.
But how many homes and businesses are satisfied with 50-watt lamps? When the industry starts producing 75- and 100-watt equivalents, LEDs will begin to gain traction. (Cree, a lighting company, has announced a reflector lamp that it says produces a similar look to a halogen lamp, uses 12 watts, and can replace up to a 90-watt incandescent lamp.)
Are LED lamps ready for the consumer? Hardly. Most of the strange-looking LED products sold in home improvement stores remain below par. Many manufacturers make unsubstantiated claims about lamp life and brightness.
But for the well-heeled set, there are plenty of highly regarded products that use a fraction of the power of an incandescent bulb. But they come at a high initial price. I recently visited a home in the tony Brentwood section of Los Angeles that was entirely lit with LED “downlights” made by Cree, and I couldn’t tell the difference between the light from those fixtures and standard bulbs. And Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway scooter, has lighted the home he owns on a small island only with Color Kinetics LED products.
The Department of Energy is conducting a seminar in a few weeks to discuss the state of LED lamps that can replace standard incandescents. And more commercial buildings, including a wing of the Pentagon and even a KFC/Taco Bell restaurant, have switched over to the new technology.
But despite these successes, many engineers remain resistant to using LEDs. A major real estate developer in Los Angeles recently showed me correspondence from his engineering team questioning why anyone in his right mind would use LED lamps in a commercial project, citing high cost as a reason to eschew their use. For now, the lighting industry and the building industry often seem to be speaking different languages.
Company News, Green Technology, Innovations and Ideas, Technology and Society, Color Kinetics, Cree, LEDs, lighting Related Posts
From Bits
Dean Kamen’s ‘LED Nation’
Fluorescents Are So Over
Do TV Buyers Dream of Electric Sheep?
Do Energy-Saving LED Lamps Save Energy?
LED’s Good Housekeeping Seal
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Previous post
I.B.M. Pledges $2 Billion For Economic Recovery Gap
Next post
The $100 Million Mobile App Question
11 Comments
1. April 30, 2009
10:14 am
Link
It is just a matter of time. Taiwanese companies are spending significant sums to manufacture better and less expensive LED lighting. (By the way, I cannot believe that your copy editor let you write LED instead of L.E.D.)
All lighting should be evaluated on a TCO basis. And, for lighting, the equation is:
TCO = Initial cost + electricity costs over the lifetime of the “bulb” + labor to replace the bulb
That is why the first mass application for LED lighting was for traffic lights. The labor cost for replacement is HUGE (specialized truck, crew, length of time on site).
The problem for home use is twofold:
1. Labor cost is usually measured as $zero. The homeowner values his time at $zero and the lights are physically easy to replace.
2. Homeowners are very poor at calculating energy costs over a decade and therefore tend to cost them at near zero.
Once LEDs are 3x and not 7x the cost of halogens, we will see a much larger uptake by homeowners.
— Dave Barnes
2. April 30, 2009
1:27 pm
Link
the developers will always use the technology with low initial cost and higher lifecycle cost. This is simple economics.
But our society does not allow developers to build physically unsafe buildings and we should not allow them to build environmentally unsafe buildings either.
Mandate LEDs and the costs will fall as volume ramps up
CFLs are a health hazard - mercury, a safety hazard due to low initial lumens and should be banned from residential use
— dave
3. April 30, 2009
1:31 pm
Link
l. e. d.’s were installed in Portland Oregon traffic lights in furtherance of Portland’s maniacal plunge into assumed energy savings at any cost
During the first substantial snow fall, MOST OF THE TRAFFIC LIGHTS WENT OUT!
Our finest minds ultimately determined that the l. e. d.’s gave out insufficient heat to melt the snow and ice from the lenses.
But we will be alright until next winter..
— donovan Jacobs
4. April 30, 2009
2:32 pm
Link
I think people need to start buying them now. The initial price is well worth it for many reasons, including, the fact that no mercury is inside them (unlike compact fluorescents). The low wattage and long life is another reason (less power consumed, less in landfills). Also, the fact you are contributing (in a small way admittedly) to the price coming down for everyone by increasing demand. The same logic goes for buying organic cotton products.
— Ken
5. April 30, 2009
3:01 pm
Link
Luddites Against LED Lights!
— Bill Mahiger
6. April 30, 2009
3:36 pm
Link
By “warmer” light, do you mean that ugly yellow tinge that comes from incandescent bulbs? The color that made be go out and by compact fluorescents in the first place so that I could have white light? I don’t know why you would want that hideous effect.
— Adam
7. April 30, 2009
3:39 pm
Link
As an aside, L.E.D. lights are making huge headway in professional film and video applications. They are increasingly brighter, cheaper, and heat free.
I just returned from the NAB conference and was struck by the changes over last year.
Two vendors stand out:
Litepanels
http://www.s131567196.onlinehome.us/
and
Zylights
http://www.zylight.com/servlet/StoreFront
I would suspect the same technology to make inroads in
commercial locations.
— Elliot porter
8. April 30, 2009
5:36 pm
Link
Please , please , stop bleating about mercury in Compact Fluorescent bulbs. It is a minute amount.
For God”s sake find something worth worrying about.
Swine flu is a candidate.
— Bruce
9. April 30, 2009
5:37 pm
Link
donovan jacobs, then all Portland has to do is put hoods back on the lights (they shouldn’t have been taken off to begin with) as the older-style traffic lights had. And I’m in no way a ‘green hardliner.’
— Larry
10. April 30, 2009
6:36 pm
Link
Mandate LEDs? Whilst I sympathise with the intent, it is almost always a bad idea to manadate a particular solution. Instead, require a certain*performance*and allow any solution that meets that goal.
In this case, require a suitable lumens/watt and perhaps include some time-to-full-light and light spectrum benchmarks. If some clever company can produce the same light as a 100W incandescant with 0.1W by using rotating polarisation casimir phased doohickey quantulates why would we want to have a law demanding only LEDs?
— tim Rowledge
11. April 30, 2009
6:46 pm
Link
LED bulbs are better than CFL spiral fluorescents because:
1) they last 10 times as long before “burning out” (dimming to half brightness)
2) they don’t release mercury and don’t break
3) they take a little bit less energy than CFL and a lot less than regular incandescent.
On the other hand, LED bulbs cost as much as 50x the price of a CFL - literally $50 vs. $1. At that price the only justification is a savings in costly or dangerous labor such as having a union employee climb a tall ladder to replace the bulb.
For normal home lighting, switching from incandescent to fluorescent pays for itself in a month and can save literally hundreds of dollars a year. Switching to LEDs instead essentially takes all that savings and gives it to the LED bulb makers. LED bulbs do pay for themselves over a long enough time frame, but if your goal is saving money the right choice today is CFL.
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