LED Lighting says lamp will be world's most efficient

Breakthrough could spur use of LEDs

MORRISVILLE -- LED Lighting Fixtures will announce today that it has made a technology breakthrough that will dramatically lower the cost of lighting homes and offices with LEDs.

In an interview Tuesday, CEO Neal Hunter said LLF is developing a lamp that uses less energy than its current LED fixtures but emits the same amount of light. He said a just-released federal study confirms that the product is the most efficient in the world. It uses 5.8 watts of power, compared with 60 watts for an equally bright incandescent bulb.

According to the report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the new fixture uses less than 9 percent of the energy consumed by common bulbs and less than 30 percent of that consumed by fluorescent lights. LLF's best existing product consumes 15 percent of the energy used by an incandescent bulb and 50 percent of that used by fluorescents.

That is unprecedented, Hunter said. "This will redefine the way lighting is done," he said.

Light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, and the lamps in which they are placed have progressed rapidly in the past five years. They first illuminated electronic gadgets but now can be found in streetlights and lighting in parking garages.

Hunter started LLF in 2005 with the aim of packaging LEDs in a bulb form that would make LEDs bright and warm enough for widespread use in indoor and ambient spaces.

"The technology is only going to get better from here and become less and less expensive," Hunter said Tuesday. Before starting LLF, he co-founded and helped run Cree, a Durham company that makes some of the LEDs used in LLF's lighting products.

Hunter said he hopes to debut the brighter and more efficient lamps by the end of 2008. The first buyers will be wholesale distributors -- the company has 300 in the U.S. and Canada -- though the products should start to appear on chain store shelves in 2009, Hunter said.

Like his former colleagues at Cree, Hunter is pushing an industry movement to replace incandescent and fluorescent bulbs worldwide with LEDs, which are more environmentally friendly. Incandescent bulbs eat lots of energy, while fluorescents, including the popular compact fluorescents, contain mercury, a toxic substance.

LEDs can cast light using a fraction of the energy consumed by traditional bulbs, and they last for years, even decades. But their mass adoption has been held back by cost: They are much more expensive to buy. Incandescent and fluorescent bulbs generally cost a few dollars, while LED lamps of similar brightness can cost about $50. Industry analysts predict the purchase price of LED lights will continue to decrease relative to competing products.

Hunter is trying to accelerate the process. His company raised $16.5 million in private equity this month to speed research and development and expand its line of products with the higher performing versions recently tested.

Though LLF has a technological edge on competition, others are also investing and spurring rapid industry consolidation in which small players get bought. Light-bulb giant Royal Philips Electronics has announced plans for its third major LED purchase with the $2.7 billion acquisition of Genlyte Group of Louisville, Ky.

Hunter said that deal is the clearest sign yet that the world is switching to LED technology.

"It's so significant for the industry because it says Philips believes LED is the real win," Hunter said.

Asked whether LLF will remain independent, he said: "That might be difficult. We are certainly being recognized, so selling is an option."