Cree plant lighting LED wins the trust of global customers
According to the analysis of LEDinside, the market demand for plant lighting in Europe and the United States has steadily increased in 2019. Compared with other lighting applications, market demand will continue to grow steadily in 2020. LEDinside is honored to interview one of the best, Cree, and Paul Scheidt, head of product marketing, will share how their leading LED technology can help plant lighting applications, as well as current and future market development trends.
Scheidt said that in the long run, plant lighting is a growing market for LEDs. Despite the current impact of the new crown epidemic, economic development has slowed down, and the market has experienced a certain degree of weakness in the short term. But we can fully expect that with the restart of various economies/countries around the world, the plant lighting market will continue to grow.
Plant lighting has been and will continue to be a core specialty of Cree LED. For this application, Cree continues to expand its LED product portfolio with higher performance and higher reliability. We are always committed to this commitment. This will help us open up new project opportunities and help our customers to work closely with us to achieve successful examples.
In addition, by cooperating with major plant lighting manufacturers, Cree plant lighting LED applications have a footprint all over the world. CREE's customers continue to win successful projects worldwide, from large-scale projects in Europe, to new and upcoming projects in the Americas, to professional greenhouse operations in Asia. CREE is very proud and honored.
Scheidt said that every project in the field of plant lighting has its own uniqueness. However, similar to general lighting, efficiency will be a key factor. Other factors include region, crop, customer demand, etc. As a supplier of plant lighting companies, Cree’s key is to provide customers with higher-performance products to help customers succeed. In the field of plant lighting, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. But as a supplier, we need to provide customers with the correct combination of key parameters such as spectrum, efficiency, and reliability to succeed.
Like any lighting-related market, LEDs are becoming an excellent alternative to existing technologies (such as high-pressure sodium lamps and metal halide lamps) in the field of plant lighting. Continuously improving performance and continuously improving costs are the keys to promoting LED adoption. Cree will continue to focus on improving efficiency and provide the market with industry-leading key indicators such as ol/J/$ or efficiency/$. We are committed to becoming an LED supplier with excellent performance and efficiency.
Cree offers many advantages in this field, one of which is to provide leading performance in all major LED types (including ceramic package high power, ceramic package COB, metal package COB, plastic package high power and plastic package medium power). Regardless of the type of LED used in the lamp to achieve better work results, Cree can provide a matching industry-leading platform.
Another key advantage is that we have always been strict in requirements and focused on providing customers with higher LED performance, so as to help customers develop more suitable spectral distributions for their applications. We have no lighting business and will not compete with customers.
Agricultural and plant research centers distributed around the world are conducting research on spectrum tuning and timing, which means that different formulations have different requirements. We continue to focus on developing higher efficiency LEDs in the visible spectrum and provide better products in the visible spectrum.
Cree XP-E Far Red and XP-G3 Photo Red and Royal Blue have set benchmarks for spectral efficiency. For white LEDs with a wider spectral range, we have a variety of options including COB, high-power and mid-power package types.
Scheidt believes that every application and every crop has its own unique needs. Due to seasonality and latitude, not all plant producing areas can get enough sunlight every day (DLI, daily light integral) to maximize crop yield.
Sunlight is a full spectrum and the lowest cost solution for any plant growth. Where more "sunlight" is needed, adding more full-spectrum lighting is an effective strategy. But it is not always the best choice for achieving the best energy efficiency. More full-spectrum lighting combined with other methods such as adjustable LED lighting does not always affect the nutrition, taste and even health of plants.
The scientific questions about spectral absorption and tuning have not yet been fully answered. Due to different growth conditions and crops, each situation is different. Continuously optimizing the efficiency and spectral characteristics of LED lighting is a key research area to realize the future of this industry.
With the end user customers have a better understanding of the advantages that LEDs can provide, we can already see the transition from traditional high-pressure gas discharge lamps HID to LED lighting. For example, Cree XLamp XP-G3 Photo Red LED is the first LED light source that can provide twice the efficiency of traditional light sources. Since then, we have been improving efficiency. When growers see this performance and understand the promise we have made, they can understand that our innovation can be the cornerstone of their success.
In this year and more years to come, Cree will continue to upgrade new and existing products, set benchmarks for performance and reliability, and maintain a leading position. We will continue to focus on the field of plant lighting to help customers achieve success.