Efficient LED technologies improve lighting in residential and commercial applications

Lighting accounts for upward of 10% of total energy use in average US homes and up to 40% in commercial buildings. Conventional incandescent bulbs are woefully inefficient, with only 5-10% of the electricity consumed converted into useable light and the rest wasted as heat. Compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) are more efficient but have often fallen short in terms of performance and longevity. LED-based buy led high bay lamps (SSL) has made enormous strides since starting out as a novelty niche technology. LEDs are now a viable option in a wide range of applications, as a case study in a residential setting has demonstrated. Moreover, a host of new technologies provide more options in commercial applications as well.
Within the lighting industry, however, leading manufacturers and lighting designers / specifiers recognize that the widespread adoption of energy-efficient light sources will not occur based solely on energy costs. Ultimately, the combination of energy efficiency, design, quality, performance, and price point will determine how much market share LEDs claim against incumbent technologies in commercial and residential applications.
Several years ago, Molex joined with a group of companies and government agencies and begin a project intended to prove that SSL could be used to dramatically reduce energy usage, while providing excellent quality lighting. Results of the Oak Ridge National Laboratories (ORNL) demonstration have now confirmed both the energy savings and how LED lighting quality can be optimized using the right design and technologies.
A collaboration between the US Department of Energy (DOE), ORNL, Schaad Companies, and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), along with Molex and other commercial partners, formed the Zero Energy Building Research Alliance (ZEBRA). The objective of the alliance was to evaluate the impact of various building systems, HVAC methods, lighting approaches, and appliances to identify the highest-performing options.
ZEBRA constructed four residential homes in Oak Ridge, Tennessee within close proximity to the National Lab. Oak Ridge homes # 1 and # 2 were identical in size and appearance, as were homes # 3 and # 4, with differing approaches to construction and subsystems. Lighting was among the subsystems evaluated by the participants. Solid-state LED lighting provided by Molex was installed in home # 4 and its energy usage was compared to CFLs used in adjacent home # 3.
Kevin Willmorth, owner of Lumenique, LLC, designed the LED lighting in home # 4 to demonstrate the capability of LEDs to enhance design, deliver proper illumination levels, and reduce energy use simultaneously. The goal was to make the lighting designs functional and aesthetically attractive . Home # 3 featured CFL and linear fluorescent lighting selected from conventional luminaire showroom sources. The completed design resulted in 2.1 W / ft2 in energy usage for lighting in home # 3 (Fig. 1, left).

Home # 4 featured new Molex custom GU24 120-VAC LED light sources throughout. No commercial fixture products were available at the time of construction, so Lumenique custom-designed fixtures for this application.
What became the first generation of Molex Transcend light sources comprised an LED product powered directly from AC line voltage built into an assembly that easily snapped into a fixture using a standard GU24 socket. With Transcend, Molex wanted to deliver on the promise of bringing led high bay light for sale back to the nature of the plug-in socket of traditional light bulbs but with an LED source.
Lumenique designed luminaires to integrate Molex Transcend light sources, each of which contained a single AC-LED module produced by Seoul Semiconductor and provided roughly 150 lm of warm 3000K-CCT light and consumed 4W of power. The light level was not nearly as high as today's greater than 1000-lm LED light sources, but with a proper lighting design, the team achieved excellent results. Lumenique's design approach focused lighting where it was needed to avoid waste and glare. Moreover, the efficient LED sources enabled a layered approach with accent lighting while still enabling energy reduction relative to house # 3. Indeed, Lumenique calculated optimum light levels in different living areas, utilizing illuminance renderings and numeric calculations to visualize light patterning.