作者：Blade

The low permeability of domestic intelligent LED lighting industry (2)

Energy-saving market never lack of followers. Experts expressed different views to this problem: on one hand, intelligent LED lighting industry is the inevitable trend. On the other hand, developing a type of intelligent products costs much less than producing them. Survey reports showed that an intelligent power supplier only costs 5 yuan, while producing a matching LED lamps for this supplier will cost 20%-30% more. Through calculation, a dimmable LED products costs 20% more than non-dimmable LED products (same type). Adding RGB functions will cost 30% more.

Experts expressed different views to this problem: on one hand, intelligent LED lighting industry is the inevitable trend.

Longxin Zhang divided the entire LED development into three stages: replacing traditional lamps; self improvement (more energy-saving, more intelligent); cross-sector integration (including Internet of Things, long-distance control, residential intelligent LED lighting technique etc.). Currently, Chinese LED lighting market is still in the first stage. Simplified intelligent LED lighting technique is a transition phase, a middle stage between first level and second level. Chinese LED industry only has developed for ten years, still in the first stage. Some people began to accept this new lighting technology, but most still take a wait-and-see approach to it. They expect cheaper and more reliable products. The technique of LED has not been fully developed, the spread level has not been maximized. LED is not mature in both industrial aspect and in commercial aspect. Under such circumstance, rushed into intelligent stage is not a wise behavior.

 

Chen Xu is also suspicious of this problem. Internet of Things, sensor technology, and cloud computing are all in their early stages. The development of intelligent LED lamps requires the mature of these technologies. In his point of view, they should develop at least simultaneously. And this problem cannot be solved in short term.

 

Nowadays, most of LED enterprises just want to add some additional value to their products tough “intelligence” and expand the brand influence at the same time. However, this method is only suitable for large LED enterprises. Small and middle sized LED companies lack of capital to operate.

 

Some experts also indicated that the development of intelligent LED lighting industry should obtain the support of government. Such clutter developing modes will lead to a chaos in domestic LED high bay lighting market, prolonging the first stage.

 

 

The low permeability of domestic intelligent LED lighting industry (1)

Currently, intelligent LED lighting industry is just in the beginning stag in China. Many domestic LED enterprises treated this emerging market as a big chance and spent a lot of energy and money on the research and development. Kingsun-China spent 7.65 million yuan on development of intelligent LED street lights and incidental power supplier technology in 2011. It accounted for 51.69% of all development plans. In 2012, Kingsun-China intended to heavy the investment in this area. There are 15 LED lighting enterprises in China had annual sales more than one billion yuan. Among which 12 enterprises started relevant research and development in intelligent LED lighting industry.

Many domestic LED enterprises treated this emerging market as a big chance and spent a lot of energy and money on the research and development.

“Presently, most of our researches for intelligent LED lighting technology are concentrated on dimmable RGB products. Systematical intelligent LED lighting technology has not been touched yet. In this area, we were far behind our overseas competitors.” Said Longxin Zhang. Chairman of Guangzhou LED Lighting Association. In his opinion, Chinese LED manufacturers developing intelligent LED lighting technology is just for commercial purposes. Demand for automatically controlled RGB lamps started to emerge in recent years. In order to occupy the best place in this new born market, domestic LED enterprises rushed into this area without any deep considerations and full preparations, which is rather dangerous. This only means that Chinese LED manufactures are not fully understand the significance of intelligent LED lighting products. On the contrary, foreign LED companies behaved much better than us. They focused on long-term effects. Their purpose to develop intelligent LED lights products is to improve people’s life qualities.

 

Some LED enterprises have promoted their intelligent LED lighting products. These products realized intelligent operations mainly though power suppliers. Thus, this kind of “intelligence” is low-tech and easily made. Only those who has realized intelligence though integrated circuits can be named intelligent products. Meanwhile, the real demand of this type of products in Chinese market has been over estimated. Economics department of Fudan University published a survey report recently. This report indicated that the permeability of intelligent LED lighting products in mainland market is less than 2%. Demands are focus on dimmable LED landscape lights, dimmable LED street lights and their monitoring system.

 

The new technology can replace the sapphire substrate which reduced the cost of LED production lights

According to the report of Physicist organizational network, a new manufacturing technology is expected to significantly reduce the cost of production of light-emitting diode and to further promote the popularity of the process.

Silicon is a standard semiconductor materials with large size, low cost, easy processing, good electrical conductivity, excellent conductivity, and performance. However, technical difficulties is different coefficient thermal expansion of silicon and gallium nitride,  and vulnerable to stress during the manufacturing process, resulting in uneven and rupture of the film, so it has not been able to widely available in the led production lights cracking phenomenon. Through a special process, the new technology is not only avoided the cracking phenomenon, but also make the new LED Lights stable and bright and are well suited for high-power solid-state lighting.

LED STREET LIGHT is an energy efficient lighting solutions, and considered as the most expectation to replace traditional light sources. So far, however, the cost of LED production have been higher than other more sophisticated lighting products. So it has not been widely used in daily life. Through the use of new technology, LED production is expected to spend a larger piece of silicon, which will be a major upgrade of the efficiency of led production lights.

With its technology, OSRAM has been successfully produced high -performance LED wafer with a diameter of 150 mm(6 inches). Researchers have begun to adjust the production process to manufacturer 200 mm(8 inch) wafer. This will further increase the number of chips on each substrate, reduce production costs. It is understood that the LED industry, mostly 50 mm(2 inch) or 100 mm(4 inch) as the substrate base. Such as silicon GaN technology can save at least 75% of the cost of raw materials.

At present, this film based on the new LED High Bay is still in the prototyping stage. It will be reality environment reliability test. Preliminary experiments showed that the technology made of blue and white silicon-based LED, which can achieve the performance and market products that are similar to the sapphire substrate. They estimated that the first commercial led production lights  using the technology will be appeared within the two years after listing.

LED bulb prices will be reduced constantly

LED inside pointed out LED lighting products will have a relatively high exposure to the consumer in this year. Take China for instance, the number of online sold LED bulbs in May of 2011 was sparse. But it grew pretty fast. Two months later, there were more than 1000 types of LED bulbs sold online.

LEDinside pointed out LED lighting products will have a relatively high exposure to the consumer in this year.

LED inside conducted a survey in LED bulb prices which were mostly used to replace 40W and 60W filament lamps. The survey result indicated that the average price of LED bulbs (used to replace 40W/60W filament lamps) are 24USD and 45USD respectively, reduced by 2% and 6%compare with June. In terms of region market, European LED bulb market suffered the most sharp price reduction in July 2011. By analysis, LED inside contributed this price reduction to two main factors: large LED enterprises joint into price battle, taking minor adjustments; The promotion of new products from second-tier brands impact LED bulb prices.

 

Meanwhile Japanese LED lighting market also met with a sharp reduction in LED bulb prices. The average price of LED bulbs there dropped by 5% within half years. However, compare with the wide fluctuation in European and Japanese market, American and South Korean market remained relatively stable.

 

In this price adjustment, the price of LED bulbs used to replace 60W filament lamps dropped from 48USD to 45USD, becoming the most devalued LED products. Although 45USD per each is still far beyond the capability of ordinary people, but most of them accepted this price level gradually and expected further price reductions in the future. “We hope more and more brands can join into this competitions. On one hand, we have more options. On the other hand, they become cheaper”. Said one customer from Japan. He expressed his strong interest in LED lighting products. Whether LED lamps can completely replace filament lamps is still need time to prove. The current prosperous of LED lighting technology does not mean that they can constantly keep in this situation.

 

With the continuous improvement of LED technology, the price of other LED products is reducing or will be reduced soon. Experts implied that this is actually a price dropping of luminous flux of LED technology. Take LED bulbs used to replace 60W filament lamps for example, the price of per thousand lumen was dropped from 55USD to 52USD through calculation.

 


On mains LED lighting

One. Hard to visit customer and satisfy the customers’ needs

A lot of LED Lights domestic sales are very edgy but full of energy. They can be hard to find customers, but will not stop to rest to think about the real needs of customers. They did not grasp the customer, but carried away by customers. By contacting with customer, we should get the follow analysis ideas:

a) whether the product itself meets the customers’ requirements or not? regardless of quality or price, or no value. We should find what  customers are most concerned about on mains LED lighting. We have to remember one sentence:’ The product is always right, the customer is always right.” But do not forget another word:” Respect yourself, cherish customers and understand how to give up.”

b)Does customer accept your professional level? If you can not get customer’s acceptance, and you should learn from the customers. Treat your customer as a teacher or student is a very interesting thing. If customers speak highly of you and treat you as the expert. That reflects yourselves’ value. Then you should help customer to solve a lot of problems and be friend with them is a natural thing.

c) The platform in your company should fight for the interests of their own. Under the premise of non-violate the company’s interests, we should be on the customer’s side as far as possible. Be stick to ourselves principles, believe in ourselves and company, and also believe in customers, believe Eneltec LED HIGH BAY.

Two. “Corporate strategy” and “own opinion”

The guiding ideology of the business operations have the wrong direction to sales. Sales are very obedient and adaptation to market, so it result in no gain for both company and individual performance. When they have good insights, but they have no company’s support, just fighting singly. The above two kinds of phenomena is a lot, the key reason is lying on the sales person, who is not give timely feedback on market demand, there is no strong courage to get the company support about mains LED lighting, no communicate with internal harmony. A company’s business is an organization, cohesion, and if they can not enhance each other, certainly it can not grow the business.

Three. “Can not find customer” and “no place a order”

If you can not find customers, it means you do not understand the industry. You should ask experienced people. Looking for engineering when you are in outdoor, and looking for business when you are indoor. Good at using a search engine, capturing the keyword, and expand own horizons, and have more contact with our peers. And tolerant is very important.

If customer do not place order, you should first ask yourself how to assess the client, why do you assess like this and list a table. In the LED street light industry, many business are lying to myself and even many business owners. Do not intend to abandon this client. You should carefully analyze the customer why they are not placing a order?

How to choose suitable LED power suppliers?

The load characteristics of LED determine that only power suppliers with higher reliability can be used. Within a certain section, increasing the external voltage will cause an exponentially increased current. When LED Lights work in the normal condition, subtle changes in voltage will cause widely vibrations in current. Thus most switching power suppliers are no longer suitable for LED applications. Because the output of switching power suppliers is not a constant value. However, how to choose right LED power suppliers for LED applications?

The load characteristics of LED determine that only power suppliers with higher reliability can be used.

LED is very sensitive for input voltage. The normal working voltage for LEDs is around 3.0V-3.6V (different power has different input voltage). A slightly fluctuation in input voltage will lead to a violent change in current, consequently causing a violent power output. If the vibration exceeds a certain threshold, accidents may happen. Experiments proved that adding voltage suppressing components (TVR, TVS) in circuits is useless.

 

Reliability and efficiency are constrained by each other. Power suppliers with higher efficiency must have a lower reliability, vice versa. In order to reduce the influence of output voltage to input voltage, electrical energy must go though several transformations. For example, the reliability of BUCK circuit is not very high. But BUCK-BOOST circuit has much better reliability than BUCK circuit. This has been proved. Known by those who had electricity background, when the switch of BUCK circuit is turned on, LED HIGH BAY loads and inductances are cascaded in the circuit under 300V external voltage. BUCK-BOOST circuit separately charge inductances firstly. When the BUCK-BOOST circuit is switched off, then inductances in BUCK circuit will transmit electrical energy to LEDs. The difference between them is BUCK circuit will work directly under 300V voltage in a period of time while LEDs in BUCK-BOOST circuit will not be explored under such high voltage. Thus the later has a much better reliability than the former. And relatively, BUCK-BOOST circuit actually has two electrical transmission sections: from power supplier to inductances and then from inductances to LEDs while BUCK circuit need only one step to charge LED STREET LIGHTS. In the aspect of efficiency, BUCK circuit has a better performance.

 

Thus currently used LED power suppliers are followed such law: isolated circuit has a better reliability than non-isolated circuit. Low voltage circuit has a better reliability than high voltage circuit.


Subject to the core technology, indoor LED lighting products hardly to go further (3)

This type of government leading developing mode has been questioned by many experts and insiders. They generally thought that the excessive government support will give birth to the dependency of domestic LED manufacturers. They will be keen to project biddings rather than promote innovations in products and market. In fact, this tendency is obvious. Many LED manufacturers would like to apply projects under explicit state policies to enjoy the subsidies. In Mr. Wu’s opinion, LED high bay lighting is a big direction. But in most conditions, local governments became more and more utilitarian. “lighting is easy, maintain the lighting is not so easy.”

 This type of government leading developing mode has been questioned by many experts and insiders.

Fallen upstream.

“In LED lighting area, we should be alert every moment. Otherwise, the government subsidies will be in foreign companies’ back pocket.” One office from material section of MIIT said to reporters. In his point of view, there are two main reasons for the government substantial supports in this field: 1. The urgent needs for energy saving; 2. The huge economic potential in global LED lighting market. However, Chinese manufactures are in the lowest position of the entire industrial chain, especially for indoor LED lighting products. Normally, LED industry chain can be divided into three parts: upstream, midstream and downstream. Upstream is chip manufacture, epitaxy manufacture and equipment manufacture. Midstream is chip package. Downstream is LED street light applications manufacture. Upstream LED chip manufacture has been monopolized by Cree, Philipslumileds and Nichia. And chips for LED low-end products have also been controlled by chip manufacturers from Taiwan. Currently, the cost of LED chip is occupied more than 60% of the entire LED lamp cost. When domestic LED companies successfully listed, they had to face up the fact that developing upstream market, inventing their own LED chips. In accordance to the national regulations, large LED enterprises should bear responsibility of independent innovations of LED core technologies. Whether these listing LED enterprises can hold seats in LED upstream market is still anyone’s guess.

 

At present, our manufacturers of indoor LED lighting products are concentrated on midstream and downstream. LED package and LED applications manufacture have relatively low-barrier, leading to the fierce competitions from domestic LED company. Profit is increasing reduced. Nowadays, most sophisticated LED chip technology is held in the hand of foreign companies. This technologies are protected by patent right. Domestic manufacturers have to pay for them. “We have become workers for foreign companies.”


Subject to the core technology, indoor LED lighting products hardly to go further (2)

However, crises of energy-saving lamps have become chances for LEDs. It is a controversial topic that whether indoor LED lighting products can finally replace energy-saving lamps. The industry is generally of the view that LED lights and energy-saving lights are two independent products within two distinguished stages of lighting development. They may coexist for a long time. Hong Wu, chairman of Shanghai Lighting Society indicated that energy-saving lamps will not be replaced by LED in next three years. “In 2011, we estimate that this process will cost us at least 10 years, now it seems not.” Mr. Wu also said that if judged by the strict international LED standards, most of the LED lamps currently on the market are unqualified, especially for indoor LED lighting products.

 However, crises of energy-saving lamps have become chances for LEDs. It is a controversial topic that whether indoor LED lighting products can finally replace energy-saving lamps.

Restrictions from core LED chip technologies reduce the quality of domestic LED products, which has become an obvious weakness of Chinese LED manufacture. Cooling problem of high LED lighting products and more reliable and more efficient fluorescent powder are two main technical difficulties for international LED lighting industry. According to the current technology level of China, replacing energy-saving lamps (less than 10W) by LED lighting techniques should have no problem. But for energy-saving lamps with power consumptions more than 10W, LED shows its incapability.

 

LED is an artificial spawning baby. The main factor of artificial spawn is government support policies rather than materials. The State Council executive meeting held on 16th May determined the implementation of encourage consumption policies of energy-saving household electrical appliances. Central government funding for these subsidies will total 26.5 billion yuan, in which 2.2 billion yuan are for promotion of LED and energy-saving lighting products. This is the third favor from central government to LED industry this year. In one of previous documents indicated that Chinese government will spend nearly 40 billion yuan on purchasing LED street lights and provide 30% subsidies for providers. At local level, Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta and Fujian Province have become the LED investment hot spots. Local governments issued all kinds of incentives to LED industries. As the largest LED manufacturing base, Guangdong was typically cared for by local government.


Subject to the core technology, indoor LED lighting products hardly to go further (1)

Since the beginning of the year, LED lighting products have become the new darling for policy and fund. Support policies and subsidy programs keep emerging. LED lighting business started to revive from the global economic depression. However, behind the seeming recovery, LED lighting industry still has many cannot-be-ignored problems: lacking of upstream chip technologies, domestic LED lights manufacturers either fluctuate in low profit downstream or produce low quality LED chips. Therefore, indoor LED lighting products can hardly go further. Some LED companies only rely on support policies, impeding the market adaptability.

 

According to the industrial measure criterion, only when the market penetration of one product reaches 10%, it can be defined as the “take off” of this product. Presently, the penetration of LED high bay lighting products in Chinese market is only 2%. Lacking of core technology yet being artificial spawned raised concerns about LED lighting industry.

Since the beginning of the year, LED lighting products have become the new darling for policy and fund.

Subject to the core technology:

“Traditional energy-saving lamps will be replaced by LED lighting techniques finally. Either in energy saving aspect or in environment aspect, LED street light is better. The shapely raised rare earth prices in 2011 sped up this process.” Said Bujun Cai, assistant manager of WinNews Technology Co., Ltd. LED lighting industry is growing, but we cannot judge just from currently intense investment. Both LED lighting technology and widely used energy-saving lamps are national promoted energy-saving products, aiming to completely replace traditional filament lamps. In 2011 Chinese government released the first filament-lamp-replacing blueprint to ban the sale and import of ordinary filament lamps with power consumptions more than 100W. This plan will be implemented from 1st October, 2012. In the second step, filament lamps with power consumptions more than 15W will be banned to sale and import from 1st October, 2016. But the government tends to promote indoor LED lighting products as equivalent techniques.

 

The price increase of RE materials in 2011 caused the government’s tendency to LED. Both LED lighting technique and energy-saving lamps need to use RE (rare earth) phosphor materials, but the consumption of RE materials of the former is only 1/1000 of the later. Hit by skyrocketing RE materials prices, many energy-saving lighting manufacturers were forced to close. On the other hand, this price-raising storm also led to the sharply quality reduction of energy-saving products. Unqualified rate is closed to 50%.


Five Problems of LED lighting lamp industry (2)

Right now, nearly 80% LED projects are used in public works. Applying LED technique in civilian projects still need the support of government. After ten years development, LED lighting lamp industry met with its first bottleneck. LED manufacturers thus desired to be involved in more civilian projects. Since LED lamps are normally more expansive than traditional lights, it is hard to be accepted by ordinary families. Due to the low demand of residential LED lighting products and also the low profit of low power LED lamps, manufacturers have no interest in this area. “LED is a more sophisticated lighting technology, consuming less energy, more environment friendly. Government should expand it to people.” Said Fangwei Huang, chairman of Shanghai Lighting Association. Marketing manager of ChangLight Qiang Liu also expressed his opinion “In past five years, we put most of our energy and money in high power LED area. We tried hard to win biddings of public projects, since only in this way we can earn money. Relatively, we are weak in residential LED area. We thought this part is unworthy of attention as the low profit. Now we knew that we were totally wrong. We did not spend enough energy and money in this area. We are lack of technique, which is rather crucial. Besides, we have not established a complete set of distribution channels. Now we have to face up the fierce competitions from overseas ravels, we are vulnerable. ” Within ten years development, LED lighting technique cannot be wide spread as traditional energy-saving lamps in residential lighting area. Government can promote this new technology to people though civilian works. That is the reason why LED merchants called for the support of government.

Right now, nearly 80% LED projects are used in public works. Applying LED technique in civilian projects still need the support of government.

Bottleneck in technology and equipment. In the field of LED technology and epitaxy equipments, there is obvious bottleneck in domestic LED lighting lamp industry. Independent innovations and patents are concentrated on LED packaging area. In other crucial LED technology fields, like white LED, cooling design for high power LED applications, degeneration problem of fluorescent powder, were monopolized by LED giants from America, Europe and Japan.

 

Lack of an indentified price standard. Domestic LED manufacturers are generally small sized, resources separated. Most high power LED chips still rely on imports. Lacking of independent LED chip patents increases the cost of small sized LED manufacturers. Thus, it is very hard for them to work out an identified price list for their products.