U.S. research: switch to LED lighting can save $1 trillion and 800 billion

According to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RenssELaer Polytechnic Institute, RPI) of LED lighting is expected in the next ten years of introspection under $1 trillion and 800 billion (trillion) of electricity, and coal-fired power plants to reduce the burning of 1 billion barrels of crude oil, and thus eliminate the carbon dioxide emissions of 10 billion tonnes.

Designed to replace the existing incandescent lamp (incandescent) and fluorescent lamp (fluorescent) LED solid state lighting, has always been regarded as a significant energy saving, environmental protection and less pollution of a new generation of lighting technology. The RPI's "intelligent lighting engineering resource center (Smart Lighting Engineering Resource Center Jong Kyu Kim) professor said, as long as the LED in the next ten years to replace the traditional lamp can reach 80%, the huge energy saving effect.

Kim also pointed out that, LED lighting can not only replace the traditional light bulb, but also is expected to be able to control its spectrum (spectrum), space emission pattern (spectrum), light polarization (polarization) and time modulation (temporal), etc..

RPI intelligent lighting engineering resource center made by the National Science Foundation (NSF) recently offered a $185 million sponsorship, and Boston University (Boston University) and the University of New Mexico (University of New Mexico) R & D cooperation in five years of innovative optical materials, new technology and new components of intelligent lighting applications.

Kim LED pointed out that in the traditional lighting technology, like a transistor to a vacuum tube, a transistor simply become vacuum tube replacement, but derived from the integrated circuit (IC) revolution; and LED is the same, the beginning is only the traditional light bulb replacement, lighting systems have different functions in the future will be integrated, derivative, like transistor brought to IC technology.

If only is simple to replace the traditional light bulb, energy saving efficiency of LED is 5 times, 20 times the incandescent lamp fluorescent lamp; and the current research of RPI is to develop applications for LED updates, including three main directions: first, according to the application of medical control LED spectrum technology; the second is study on the control of the time modulation to achieve wireless optical network; the third is to control the LED light polarization, to enhance display technology.

In the part of the spectrum control, RPI says, it is possible to develop lighting that can change the color of the light during the day, to positively affect the mood of the workers, or to treat some of the medical problems caused by poor light. As for the modulation of LED'm afraid I need some time to see, this technology can make the lighting equipment can at the same time as the access point of the wireless network, direct links from different equipment data flow, do not like the RF wireless technology today that need all the devices share the same frequency band.

As for controlling the polarization of LED light, the LCD display can avoid the need of filter, and it can save the power consumption and increase the brightness of the display. Other smart lighting applications developed by RPI, including rapid cell identification, interactive roads, accelerate plant growth, and reduce the risk of a particular cancer and other projects.