The CETC’s event on 24^th April was a great success and over 60 members and guests attended to hear 3 excellent speakers recruited by Tim Eyre who talked about the advancing technologies of lighting, signage and television screens and the energy savings such developments will make once nations have adopted the new technologies.  In summary, the future looks bright!

Colin Humphreys, Professor of Materials Science at Cambridge University gave us the facts of life:  currently the average house in the UK has 20 light bulbs and the USA, 45.  In the UK a house will use 10 Kw hours per day which produces 70% of the CO2 made by cars and 3 times as much as used in aviation.  Current tungsten incandescent light bulbs are 5% efficient but persuading the public to change their ways to use compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) energy efficient bulbs is difficult and the EU has stepped in and banned the sale of 150 watt bulbs from 1/1/08 and 100 watt bulbs from 1/1/09 and smaller bulbs in the years thereafter.  The front of Buckingham Palace is now lit by CFLs and they use less power than an electric kettle!  He explained that CFLs have been adopted by buses, cars, cyclists and traffic lights but there were hurdles to be overcome for home use such as the slow turn on time, cool white light and the mercury content of the CFLs that will contaminate landfill sites.  Government has yet to mandate any disposal instructions on CFL packaging!  The positives are the longer life of CFLs and their much lower energy use.  There is considerable collaboration going on between universities and industry, and products are improving all the time.  Colin’s belief is that it will be 2014 before a massive energy saving is achieved through the ubiquitous use of CFLs in the UK.

Dr Scott Brown, VP- R&D of Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) took us through the commercial aspect of energy saving lighting.  His focus was on Polymer Organic Light Emitting Diodes (P-OLEDs).  Originally a spin out from the University of Cambridge in 1992 the company floated on NASDAQ in 2004 and is now owned by Sumitomo Chemical, the giant Japanese company.  He claimed that P-OLED television, for example was clearer that LED TV and used much less power 2 watts versus 66 watts.  CDT had developed small molecular OLEDS, known as SM-OLEDS for signage, TV and moving images.  Colours were controlled by polymers that had long life and used ink-jet printing to provide extreme accuracy of the image.  The technology was difficult but rewarding and he expected lighting to become the big user of the CDT technology in years to come.  He had high hopes for signage, panel lighting and transport as well as the topless project, whatever that might become.

Dr Neil Gerrard, formerly Director of Technical Marketing for Aixtron UK Ltd took us through market sizes and the potential for new products.  The LED global market for LEDs was $4bn of which lighting was only $200m, but growing fast.  He sees cars, buildings and lastly houses adopting the technology in that order.  Japan is the big producer of the LED chips – 48% of global output manufactured by Nichea, Citizen and Stanley.  To be profitable you must be a big producer.  Market development has been slower than expected he thinks, mainly due to litigation between manufacturers over patents.  Some bigger companies have become vertically integrated to maximize profit opportunities.  Neil believed that if there was a 20% increase in LED lighting penetration then 260 power stations around the world would be surplus to requirements.  He had a concern that LED lighting does not deliver what it says on the box. Expectations of power saving must be realistic and there were issues about agreeing standards to be overcome.  He concluded that LEDs were a huge global market.  Houses would take time to convert and the profit driver for industry would be display – signage and TV.

For many the evening was an eye opener and gave a pointer towards how we might save energy and lower emissions and, at the same time, decrease the overall cost of lighting.

The Club is very fortunate in benefiting from the sponsorship of the following organisations:-

There are also other companies who give us generous help with specific meetings and services.

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