Our Energy Future is in Flux Right Now, Regardless of Your Take on Global Warming. We are seeing an incredible push by both consumers and regulators for solutions to reduce our carbon-energy footprint. The way I see it, we have only two short-term low-carbon choices: increase green energy, primarily in the form of wind and solar, or cut energy use.

I thought I'd take a look back to see how successful we have been to date with our demand-reduction initiatives. The report, “Assessment of Demand Response and Advanced Metering 2007,” provided by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, estimates that response programs have been able to lower peak consumption of electricity by 1.4%, to 4.1%.

Of course, demand reduction can take many forms including high-efficiency lighting. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), artificial lighting consumes almost 15% of a household's electricity use. The DOE also states that new lighting technologies can reduce lighting energy use in homes by 50% to 75%. We already have some serious programs ongoing in moving from incandescent to fluorescent lighting.

ESKOM South Africa is well along on its initiative to provide 4 million fluorescent lights to residential communities in South Africa to reduce peak electricity demand. As fluorescent lights are up to 75% more efficient than the incandescent bulbs they replace, the demand reduction is immediate and measurable. If all South African households switched to energy-efficient lighting, that would amount to an annual savings of 1350 MW, half the amount of electricity produced by a traditional coal-fired power station.

In Canada, six Ontario utilities have initiated demand-side management programs that have taken 413 million kWh off the grid since 2005. As part of this effort, more than 1.5 million fluorescent bulbs were provided through mass-market programs. In the United States, both PEPCO and Progress Energy Carolinas announced energy-efficiency programs in 2007 that include large-scale change outs of incandescent bulbs with fluorescent bulbs.

But incandescent lighting can get us only so far. I am quite excited about the potential of solid-state lighting that takes advantage of light-emitting diode (LED) technology. Early promotional materials state that LED lighting can produce the same number of lumens of a 50-W incandescent bulb with a draw of only 4 W. Manufacturers have also figured out how to create warmth that rivals that of incandescent bulbs by mixing the colors of white, red and green micro-LED clusters.

The promise of LED lighting is seen in the numbers. Based on data provided by C. Crane Co. Inc., an incandescent bulb typically costs US$0.67 and lasts 1000 hours. In comparison, an LED bulb could cost in the neighborhood of $35 but last up to 60,000 hours. Of course, the real savings are in reduced energy use as LED bulbs dissipate 5% to 10% the watts of a comparable incandescent bulb.

We are just starting to see LED lighting move into commercialization. A December 2007 Business Week article stated that GE won a contract to replace fluorescent lights with LED lighting in more than 500 Wal-Mart stores. And in the May 2008 issue of NEMA's electroindustry, Jim Anderson of Phillips Solid-State Lighting Solutions reported on a lighting retrofit at Boston's historic Old North Church, where 130 LED lighting units were installed. In this installation, an 8-ft run of LED lighting consumes 40 W of energy compared to the 240 W consumed by the previous incandescent system. The LED lighting system is expected to last up to 50,000 hours, as compared to a 1500-hour average lifetime of the previous bulbs.

We still have a way to go with cost and performance issues, but the DOE is moving forward, investing $20.6 million toward solid-state lighting research and development. Seven projects are being funded to accelerate solid-state lighting advances and fill key technology gaps in solid-state lighting technology.

You might want to check out the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. I contacted Dr. Nadarajah Narendran, director of the solid-state lighting program there. He informed me that, “There are some LED technologies now available that can challenge traditional light sources in several lighting applications, providing not only better-quality light but also superior performance.” But Narendran warned me that we are in a “buyer beware” environment and that not all LED lighting fixtures perform as touted.

Researchers at the Lighting Research Center determined that traditional measurement methods have not provided realistic performance results for LED lighting fixtures, so they are developing new performance metrics with formal user recommendations. The idea is to help users identify the proper LED lighting products for specific applications. To find out the latest in solid-state lighting innovations, visit www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/solidstate/index.asp.

As we look to reduce both peak demand and energy use, expect to see lighting advances to move front and center.