EERE News January 15, 2010
Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced more than $37 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to support high-efficiency solid-state lighting projects. Solid-state lighting, which uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) instead of incandescent bulbs, has the potential to be ten times more energy-efficient than traditional incandescent lighting. Lighting accounts for approximately 24% of the total electricity generated in the United States today—by 2030, the development and widespread deployment of cost-effective solid-state lighting could reduce electricity use for lighting by one-third nationally. The 17 projects selected today include funding for solid-state lighting core research, product development, and domestic manufacturing.
“The United States must lead in energy efficiency. These solid-state lighting projects will help us significantly cut our energy use, reduce our carbon footprint, and save money,” said Secretary Chu. “This funding will also support the United States as a global leader in this rapidly evolving industry, creating high-tech, value-added jobs.”
The projects selected today address the full spectrum of research, development, and deployment for solid-state lighting (SSL) technologies. These 17 SSL awards will be leveraged with nearly $28.5 million in private industry cost share, for a total project value of more than $66 million. Projects have been selected in the following three areas:
http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/progress_alerts.cfm/pa_id=287
(From EnergyCentral.com, January 12) – The US Department of Energy has awarded $47 million for 14 projects across the country to support the development of new technologies for improving energy efficiency in the IT and communication technology sectors.
The $47 million in federal funding will be matched by more than $70 million in private industry funding, for a total project value of more than $115 million.
The funding is provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for research, development and demonstration projects in three fields: equipment and software, power supply chain, and cooling.
The equipment and software projects will focus on the core components of a data or telecommunications center, such as servers and networking devices as well as software to optimize equipment energy use. The power supply chain projects will develop technologies to minimize the power loss and heat generation that occurs as electricity flows through server-based IT and communications systems. The cooling projects will seek to demonstrate ways to cool the equipment used in IT and telecommunications work effectively.
http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=14208968
From UCS’s Greentips: January 2010 Edition
Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) have become the go-to choice for energy-efficient lighting, consuming 50 to 80 percent less electricity than traditional incandescent bulbs. But an even more efficient option is light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs, which use semiconductor technology to convert electricity directly into visible light.
LEDs use a fraction of the electricity required by other light sources: a six-watt LED generates more light than an 11-watt CFL or 40-watt incandescent while using 45 percent less electricity than the CFL and 85 percent less than the incandescent. According to our research, if a million households each replaced one 40-watt incandescent bulb with a six-watt LED, and used it six hours per day, more than 53,000 metric tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide would be kept out of the atmosphere per year.
LEDs offer other advantages as well, see:
http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/greentips/
