Currently, LED lighting applications have been researched, developed and produced by countless LED companies. LED technology has occupied a very important position in the project lighting market and the outdoor lighting market. But for residential lighting market, it is only to say that LED technology is still an emerging market full of potentials and opportunities. How to bring LED lighting sources into ordinary families?

 

 

The distribution of domestic LED lighting industry is relatively concentrated: the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, the southeast region and Beijing area. Each area has basically formed a relatively complete industrial chain. Dalian, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Nanchang have large-scale production bases for LED.

 

Most people in this country are still lacking of necessary knowledge about LED lighting technology. Furthermore, prices of LED products are much higher than that of other traditional lamps. As a result, it is difficult for LED lamps have a deep penetration in residential lighting market. On 20^th of March this year, the Ministry of Finance, the National Development of Reform Commission and the Ministry of Science and Technology launched a public tender named “2012 financial subsidies and projects for promotion of LED semiconductor lighting products”. Nearly 300 bidders from 110 LED companies all around the country participated in the tender. Many LED lamps have been listed as tender products, like LED down lights, reflective self-ballasted LED lights are classified as indoor lighting applications, and LED street lights, LED tunnel lights used for outdoor purposes. The National Development and Reform Commission declared that in 2012 the Chinese government will spend 40 billion yuan for LED lights procurement and provide 30% financial subsidy for users.

 

At present, LED lighting sources are still in the stage of immature, frequently encountering bottlenecks both in technologies and in equipment producing. In the field of substrate materials and wafer equipments, domestic LED lighting industry had obvious bottlenecks. The independent innovation and patents of our LED industry are mainly concentrated on the packaging area. Those core technologies, like White-ray LEDs, heat dissipation of high-powered LED lamps, durable and efficient phosphor technologies, patents in these fields are mostly under the control of giant manufacturers from Europe, America and Japan. Most crucial parameters of domestic LED products are still lagged far behind the international level, like brightness, heat dissipation, lighting efficiency, evenness of light distribution, antistatic abilities, anti-leakage abilities, etc.

Currently used artificial lighting technologies in greenhouses are fluorescent lamps, high pressure sodium lamps, low pressure sodium lamps and metal halide lamps. In recent years, with the emergence and development of LED lighting technology, LED lights drives, this new energy-saving lighting source drew a lot of attention.

 

 

Traditional fluorescent lamps provide more green rays (about 50%), the rest are mainly composed of red rays and blue rays (about 25%). The proportion of infrared rays is negligible. It is known that green rays are the “main engine” for pants growing. Grow lights using fluorescent-powder-involved LED lighting sources have much higher lighting efficiency, longer service life (about 12000 hours), lower power consumption (commonly used are 28W and 36W). All these LED grow lights can completely take place of sunlight to provide sufficient lights for fruits and vegetables.

 

Sodium lamps are a type of lighting sources that use mercury and sodium vapor to generate high brightness light, which can be divided into low pressure sodium lamps and high pressure sodium. Sodium lights (LP) appeared earlier than sodium lights (HP), equipped with LED street lighting suppliers, with a sodium vapor pressure less than several Pa. Their wavelength is concentrated around 589nm (yellow rays). Thus in most cases, they can only be used under the coordination of other lamps. Sodium lamps (LP) have very high lighting efficiency (200lm/W). The standard gas pressure of sodium lamps (HP) is 10kPa, much higher than sodium lamps (LP). They send out more red-yellow rays but very few green-blue rays, equipped with LED PWM dimming suppliers, high lighting efficiency, high power consumption, long service life (12000 hours). Sodium lamps (HP) is the most commonly used lighting source in plant lighting area, and also the closest competitors of LED lighting sources. Since sodium lamps (HP) used thermal lighting sources, which will generate a large amount of heat during operation, they cannot be used in short-distance plant lighting applications.

 

The rare metal halide vapor and mercury mixture within metal halide lamps can generate electric in given conditions. They are a type of lamps that emit light through discharge, equipped with electrical switches, spectrum of which can be adjusted by changing the mixture constitution of metal halide, high power consumption, long service life (5000 – 20000 hours). Because of the abundant internal mercury, the recycling of these lamps will bring about a lot of pollution our environment. Similar to sodium lamps, metal halide lamps used thermal lighting sources and cannot be used in short-distance lighting applications.