New Lighting Technologies Offer a Bright Future
As new lighting technologies displace tradition incandescent lamps, Tyco Electronics develops new interconnect solutions to enable implementation of the technologies by lighting manufacturers.
The lighting industry is undergoing tremendous change unseen since the inception of the light bulb more than 100 years ago. Driven by legislation involving energy efficiency and carbon dioxide reductions, this dynamic will change the way we look at and interact with lighting as we know it.
Nearly one-fifth of the world's energy, 2,650 terawatt-hours (TWh), is used for lighting. The resulting carbon dioxide footprint is 1,528 million metric tons. Some sources estimate that if we continue on our current course without any changes, global energy use will increase to 4,770 TWh by 2030. Fortunately, efforts are underway to change lighting as we know it. By 2020, the incandescent light bulb will be largely phased out in the industrialized world.
Among the emerging technologies to replace the light bulb are high-efficiency fluorescent lights and solid-state LEDs. While both offer huge advantages over the light bulb, solid-state lighting technology is seen as such a major shift that it is called disruptive to the lighting industry. While a light bulb lasts 1,500 to 3,000 hours, an LED lasts 60,000 to 100,000 hours. LEDs also offer dramatically lower power consumption.
Tyco Electronics enjoys a very good and long-standing relationship with the traditional lighting industry. Over the years, weve developed products for internal ballast use and quick-disconnect products for fixtures. Most recently, changes to the U.S. National Electrical Code mandated the use of hot-pluggable electronic ballast disconnects in fluorescent fixtures. This code change provided the opportunity for our new LIGHT-N-LOK product family.
As solid-state LED lighting solutions have come of age over the past few years, Tyco Electronics investigated new interconnect opportunities. Today, we are well positioned as a premier interconnect-solution supplier to both traditional lighting manufacturers and numerous start-ups. The LED lighting market is growing at 26% a year, with commercial lighting, signs/displays, and automotive lighting leading the growth. The unique connector solutions we offer to specifically target these applications allow us to ride this growth trend with our customers.
With our global presence, Tyco Electronics can provide a high level of service worldwide. Given that major lighting customers are global in nature, weve established fully staffed engineering competencies focused on lighting opportunities in the United States, Italy and China to serve our customers. A customer designing a fixture in North America with manufacturing in the Far East can enjoy our consistent, reliable support throughout their design and manufacturing project cycle. This support, coupled with a global manufacturing footprint, provides our customers with the unparalleled service that is a hallmark of Tyco Electronics.
Visit our lighting website at www.tycoelectronics.com/lighting to learn more about our solutions for new lighting technologies.
