Cool news on the LED front
Efficiency of light sources is measured as Lumens (a unit of light) per Watt (a unit of electrical power).
An incandescent light bulb is around 12 lumens/watt.
A Compact Fluorescent light bulb is around 65 lumens/watt.
And then we have
this press release at Lighting:
Cree achieves 231 lumens per watt in LED trial
Cree has announced an industry-best efficacy record of 231 lumens per watt for a white power LED in a research and development trial.
The US company reported that the LED efficacy was measured at 231 lumens per watt using a single-die component at a correlated colour temperature of 4500K.
Standard room temperature 350 mA testing was used to achieve the results. The previous record � set by Cree in February 2010 � was 208 lumens per watt.
John Edmond, Cree co-founder and director of advanced optoelectronics said of the results: �It wasn�t long ago when 200 lumens per watt was considered the theoretical maximum efficiency for a lighting-class LED. We broke that barrier in 2010, and have now achieved 231 lumens per watt.�
Cree was keen to point out that this level of performance is not yet available in its production lamps but the company believes such results will enable new LED-based applications and drive down the solution cost of current LED-based designs.
Probably be a couple years before this technology filters down to us mere mortals but still -- that is quite the record. 100% efficiency pencils out to a bit over 330 lumens/watt so there still is some room for improvement...
Posted by DaveH at May 11, 2011 3:14 PM