Industry News

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) have published a report entitled Assessment of Solid-State Lighting, Phase Two, which is a follow-up to its 2013 report Assessment of Advanced Solid-State Lighting. The DOE SSL Program features prominently in the new report, as the lead federal organization driving SSL advances. The new report focuses on three key areas: commercialization (noting the rapid uptake of SSL since the 2013 report), technology development (updating the findings of the 2013 report), and manufacturing. In the process, the NAS committee has updated material that was presented in the earlier study.

The new report includes praise for the U.S. Department of Energy's role in advancing SSL research and development. It also makes a number of recommendations, including many that have already been implemented by DOE’s SSL Program:

-Continue to make investments in cost-effective solutions at 200 lm/W at the luminaire level, while also considering reliability and quality of light.

-Continue to invest in leveraging R&D programs that can have a significant impact on increased SSL product availability.

-Continue to invest in SSL core technology improvements and also consider solutions to ultimately allow low-cost implementation and embody risks industry is not likely to take.

-Support LED system lifetime research and encourage the Illuminating Engineering Society to develop a standardized system lifetime test method.

-Consider initiating a broad stakeholder project to develop appropriate energy efficiency metrics for the most important emerging lighting applications, including horticulture and livestock, that are not for illumination of spaces used by people.

-Develop strategies for supporting broader research that enables more efficient use of light in such a way that the application efficacy is maximized, with attention to both the lighting design process and the design of lighting products.

The report is available for download.