Solid-state Lightings Save Energy Dramatically

Published:2011/7/5 2:43:00 Author:Phyllis From:SeekIC

In the past years, the solid-state lighting systems, which use LEDs or OLEDs, have been infiltrated almost every lighting market ranging from residential and consumer to industrial and commercial with its market penetration will only accelerate.

The DOE projects that in the next 20 years, SSL will take the largest share of lighting applications with the commercial sector leading in the transformation areas. The DOE also forecasts that by 2025, about 80 percent of incandescent and halogen lamps will be replaced by LED fixtures.

According to Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, LED lightings can not only reduce energy consumption by 70 percent, but also can release less heat and last longer as well as save costs on maintenance. In 2005, the company installed its first LED lighting system in a freezer display in its McKinney, Texas store.
The SSL can help save up to eight million kilowatt-hours power here and there. According to the DOE, the accumulated U.S. energy savings enabled by SSL over the next 20 years will total between 10.5 and 16.0 quads. One quad of energy is equal to the average annual per capita energy consumption of a population of 2.9 million, or about 167 million barrels of oil.

The energy field is full of quirky applications from bouncing balls that light up and wristwatches that wind themselves to Darpa-funded projects that tap body motion for powering wearable sensors. Energy can be harvested from a variety of sources, including vibration, sound, electromagnetic, thermal, mechanical, light, motion and pressure. Piezoelectric, photovoltaic or thermoelectric components can be used to convert the harvested energy into electrical signals.
Usually measured in milliwatts, the electricity generated by these sources may ultimately make batteries redundant and eliminate the need to connect many devices to the power grid. And scavenging energy from unlikely sources has been existed for years.

The Israeli Innowattech is a leading company in harvesting energy from piezoelectric pads placed under roads and railway tracks. A prototype installed by Israeli Railway has harvested as much as 120 kilowatt hour of energy on a piece of track that accommodates 10 to 20 ten-car trains per hour. The recovered energy can be used to power signaling lights or can be uploaded to the grid. While generating electricity from roads has promise, perhaps the most significant opportunity for energy harvesting is in wireless sensor network apps.

The BigBelly Solar intelligent waste collection system is a solar-powered trash compactor that communicates via text message with the waste hauler when it’s full. That eliminates unnecessary trips by garbage trucks to service remote trash bins, thereby reducing fuel usage and improving productivity. The related integrated circuit is LM317T.

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