Productivity council, Avnet promote LEDs
The Hong Kong Productivity Council is teaming up with Avnet Electronics Marketing, part of global electronics distributor Avnet, to design, develop and market a new generation of low-cost, energy-efficient LED lighting products.
The productivity council, a government-backed organisation formed by statute in 1967 to help local manufacturers adopt efficient technologies and practices, has forged a memorandum of understanding with United States-based Avnet to use light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in various areas, including indoor and street lighting, display advertising, heat-dissipation design, as backlights for flat-panel televisions and in car applications.
LED illumination products reduce energy consumption by emitting light from a chip rather than an incandescent filament in a light bulb or charged gases in a fluorescent light tube.
LEDs use about 10 per cent of the energy of an incandescent bulb and can last a decade or longer. They also produce almost no heat, which cuts down the potential of causing fire.
As the LED lighting market grows in the residential, commercial and outdoor applications, its revenues are forecast to exceed US$5 billion worldwide by 2012, according to US-based research firm Strategies Unlimited.
Frank Leung Wai-ming, the general manager for the automotive and electronics industries at the council, said: 'The council has been actively promoting the application of LED lighting technology and supporting local companies to overcome the technical barriers to its deployment.'
Last year, the council set up the LED Lighting Application Consortium to provide a platform for engineering and application support for this nascent market.
'Both the council and Avnet can play a more active role in partnering with the city's LED lighting product companies on the design and development of LED products,' Mr Leung said.
Avnet, which has six Asian design centres, including locations on the mainland and in Taiwan, has developed product reference solutions for general illumination, architectural and advertising lighting.
'LED lighting can play a major role in achieving compliance with Hong Kong's new building energy codes and enabling more applications to become energy-efficient,' said Frederick Fu kam-cheung, a regional president at Avnet Electronics Marketing China.
The Hong Kong government has estimated the mandatory implementation of energy codes for new buildings could result in savings of 2.8 billion kilowatt-hours in the first decade, contributing to a reduction in carbon dioxide emission of 1.96 million tonnes a year.
Mr Fu also said that 'the interest in durable, low-cost, energy-efficient LED lighting extends well beyond Hong Kong, with many potential manufacturing customers as well as large-scale end-users all looking for solutions'.
According to market intelligence provider LEDinside, Japan and Taiwan have the world's two largest LED industries.
