Company focuses on bringing LEDs to the residential market

Tristan Roberts - This article was produced by BuildingGreen, Inc.- www.buildinggreen.com

“We will make it known that this is the light source from now on.” That proclamation is not about compact fluorescent lights (CFLs), an energy-efficient and widely touted “green” product that is still gaining market acceptance, but what Manuel Lynch, President and CEO of Permlight Products, considers the next generation of environmentally friendly lighting: light-emitting diodes, or LEDs.

Permlight is staking a lot on its claim that LEDs, currently only a niche building product, are ready to be widely used in residences, offices, and hotels. With its Enbryten Down line of LED luminaires, and with HI-EF, a joint venture with Progress Lighting, Permlight’s LEDs are competing with CFLs on price, light quality, energy use, and environmental impact.

Permlight claims that its LEDs will last 30,000 hours, compared to an average of 1,000 hours for an incandescent bulb and 10,000 hours for a CFL. Used four hours a day, that’s a lamp life of 20 years, and is part of what has made LEDs a preferred choice for applications like traffic signals, interior exit signs, and exterior signs.

LEDs also are free of mercury, a toxic heavy metal used in all fluorescent lights, making fluorescents increasingly subject to government regulation. Under California’s Title 22, for example, all fluorescent lamps are classified as hazardous waste and may not be disposed of in household trash. At the same time, California’s Title 24 energy efficiency standards for buildings require high-efficacy luminaires, defined as providing 40 lumens per watt (l/w) or better, in most residential applications. Incandescents are a much lower-efficacy, while CFLs average about 55 l/w; Permlight’s LEDs are at about 40 l/w, according to the company.

Although they’ve been around for decades, LEDs had not made it to the residential market until recently for a variety of reasons. LEDs have been embraced for years within the commercial lighting industry by a number of large manufacturers, such as Cooper Lighting, Zumtobel Staff, and Louis Poulsen. Like other light sources, LEDs, a semiconductor technology, produce heat that degrades their color and reduces light output over time. Their focused, monochromatic light has been good for indicator lights on appliances, but is not a natural fit for residential area lights.

Permlight claims it has surmounted these problems: Lynch says the company is an expert in heat sink technology, which keeps the LEDs cool, and that the color temperature, color rendering index, and brightness of the company’s light fixtures are sufficient to meet most occupants’ needs. Permlight’s signature product is a recessed downlight that is sold as a retrofit for existing downlights or as a new installation.

The company is using states with stringent energy regulations as beachheads for its national ambitions. A number of large homebuilders in California are now offering its fixtures as an option on new homes, and Permlight recently announced that it had arranged an aggressive discounting program with Hawaii residents as part of a state program to encourage energy efficiency in a state otherwise highly dependent on oil for electricity generation.

LED fixtures are also being promoted for commercial and hotel interiors by Permlight. It recently announced a model of its recessed downlight retrofit fixture that it claims can realize energy savings of $1,500 per floor in an average-sized hotel. The fixtures vary in cost depending on model and volume, but the model being promoted for hotels averages about $60 per fixture in volume, according to the company, while consuming only 15 watts and emitting a light equivalent of a 26 watt CFL.

share: more »