DOE Invests $10 Million in Efficient Lighting R&D

Building on the new commitments to its Global Lighting Challenge announced during the Clean Energy Ministerial earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced funding for nine research and development projects that will support solid-state lighting (SSL) core technology research, product development, and manufacturing research and development.

DOE said in a release that the projects will help accelerate the development of high-quality LED and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) lighting.

In total, the nine selected projects will receive more than $10.5 million and will make a cost-share contribution for a total public-private investment of over $13.5 million, as they help to further reduce the cost and improve the quality of SSL products:

Cree, Inc. (Durham, N.C.)—Developing a high-efficacy LED lighting fixture that has good color rendering as well as advanced features such as the ability to tune the color of the light;

Columbia University (New York)—Developing improved quantum dots  to increase the efficiency and lower the cost of LEDs;

GE Global Research (Niskayuna, N.Y.)—Developing an efficient LED fixture that features interchangeable modules and allows for simplified manufacturing and customized performance specifications;

Iowa State University (Ames, Iowa)—Demonstrating a method to significantly increase the light output of white OLEDs by changing their internal features;

Lumenari, Inc. (Lexington, Ky.)—Developing a narrow-bandwidth red phosphor to improve the efficacy of phosphor-converted LEDs;

Lumileds (San Jose, Calif.)—Improving the design of an LED to make it more efficient by using a patterned sapphire substrate flip-chip architecture;

North Carolina State University (Raleigh, N.C.)—Developing a way to get more light out of OLEDs using low-cost corrugated substrates;

Pennsylvania State University (State College, Pa.)—Developing a way to better understand and predict the occurrence of short circuits in OLED lighting panels in order to reduce failure rates; and

University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, Mich.)—Developing three innovative methods to harness the light within OLEDs.

“Solid-state lighting research and development has contributed to more than $2.8 billion in U.S. energy cost savings over the past 15 years, and further improvements in the technology will increase those savings even more in the years to come,” said Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz. “By 2030, solid-state lighting could reduce national lighting electricity use by nearly half—which would equate to the total energy consumed by 24 million American homes today and could save American families and businesses $26 billion annually.”