LifeBulb: an LED that can match a 60W incandescent?

Hanna Gersman meets the commercial director of UK-based Zeta, one of a new breed of smaller lighting firms that is pioneering LED technology

Zeta's LifeBulb. Photograph: guardian.co.uk


With incandescent bulbs disappearing entirely from shops from September next year, the race is on to find suitable replacements. Energy-saving bulbs – or compact fluorescents (CFLs) – already do that job, but remain unpopular in some quarters and are not the most efficient alternative technology.


The real hopes lie with light-emitting diodes (LEDs), according to industry, environmentalists, and politicians. With the global lighting market predicted to be worth €110bn by 2020, companies such as Phillips, GE, and Osram are fighting to be first with the breakthrough in the LED field.


Samsung has just introduced a range of long-lasting LEDs in the US. But the consumer giants are up against a new breed of smaller lighting firms, including the UK-based Zeta, which earlier this year won £450,000 in a government competition to create an ultra-efficient replacement for 60W incandescents.


It won with its LifeBulb (pictured above), which will go on sale early next year for £20. I caught up with Anthony McClellan, Zeta's commercial director, to talk about the challenges and opportunities of LEDs.

Getting the LifeBulb to match the quality of incandescents was key, he says.

"The light produced [by the LifeBulb] is colour temperature 2800 - almost identical to that of the incandescent warm white colour traditionally used. The lamps do not flicker and are instant turn on - no warm-up time needed."

But who will pay £20 for a bulb? The investment pays for itself many times over, McClellan argues.

"If a house was to replace 25 60W incandescents with 25 LifeBulbs - they would save £232.25 per year in electricity alone."

Zeta's LED uses just 8W to produce the equivalent light output - 650 lumens - of a 60W incandescent, and should last 10 years. An equivalent CFL would use around 11-13W - a significant saving in energy and carbon emissions when scaled up. Around one-fifth of Europe's electricity is used for lighting.

Technically, the LED bears little relation to the tungsten filament design Edison invented in 1879, which converted just 5% of the energy it used into light. Light in LEDs is produced solely by the rush of electrons in a semiconductive material.

I asked what the technical challenges were.

"The challenge for us was matching the colour of the light - the warm colour that is desired within a domestic setting whilst also keeping a high lumens per watt value."

That also leads to its unique design, where the LED component is encased in an aluminium cage to allow air to flow through without overheating. He explained:

"The airflow required for natural cooling of both the LEDs and the driver lead us to a design the lamp with holes through the structure."

And what catches are there to LEDs - will there be a moment similar to when consumers realised there was mercury in CFLs? McClellan thinks not:

"They contain rare earths, but in incredibly tiny quantities."

Judge orders urgent hearing over solar subsidy cuts

Friends of the Earth and two solar companies win the go-ahead to seek a ruling that the proposals are unlawful

Terry Macalister

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 December 2011 16.13 GMT

The government faced embarrassment on Thursday over its decision to halve solar subsidies when the high court gave leave for a judicial review.

Friends of the Earth (FoE) and two renewable power companies will be able to formally challenge the ministerial decision on Tuesday and Wednesday next week in the same court.

FoE's executive director, Andy Atkins, said: "We're delighted the high court has given the go-ahead to our legal challenge. We believe government plans to abruptly slash solar subsidies are not only unfair, but illegal.

"These proposals have already had a disastrous impact on the solar industry - fledgling clean businesses have had the rug pulled from under their feet and a shadow hangs over thousands of jobs."

Daniel Green, founder of HomeSun, one of the companies that started proceedings against the government, said the legal ruling by the high court was a blow in favour of common sense.

"The feed-in tariff to solar was hugely popular with homeowners, would help keep energy bills down and divorce consumers from deeper reliance on the 'big six' energy companies. The only downside is the government decision brought the sector to a virtual standstill on December 12 when it cut support in the middle of a consultation period."

The high court had ruled on 5 December that there was no need for an immediate review of the situation but Mr Justice Mitting sitting on Thursday said given the "economic risk" for companies there was a need for urgency.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) said afterwards that it would be "defending" its position. The department launched a review of feed-in tariffs in October which included a change to the scheme two weeks before the consultation formally ended.

HomeSun, rival renewable business SolarCentury plus Friends of the Earth argued this premature decision was unlawful and has already led to unfinished or planned projects being abandoned.

John Faulks, company secretary at Solarcentury, said he was delighted with the decision. "But it is only the first step of the legal challenge. The court agrees that we have a case to argue and has given us permission to challenge Decc. Next we need to persuade the court that Decc has acted illegally. That will happen as soon as possible. The legal challenge is only part of the wider campaign by Solarcentury and the solar PV industry to get the government to recognise the strategic value of solar PV in the energy mix and maintain viable support to build a successful industry."

The government argued that subsidies could be cut back because the price of solar equipment was falling rapidly and householders did not need such generous subsidies to convince them to put panels on their roofs to generate their own energy.

It pointed out that similar moves have been made in Spain and Germany following a huge decline in costs triggered mainly by low cost manufacturing competition from China.

But Germany, which has been at the forefront of the European solar boom, has seen its local renewable companies badly hit. On Tuesday Berlin-based Solon, the first German solar company to list on the stock exchange, said it would file for insolvency while local market leader, SMA Solar, said last month it would lay off 1,000 temporary workers by the end of this year.

EU energy chief calls for new renewable energy targets

Günther Oettinger said new targets were needed for 2030, to enable businesses to plan ahead

Fiona Harvey in Brussels

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 December 2011 15.21 GMT

New renewable energy targets to go beyond 2020 must be negotiated within the next two years, the Europe's energy chief said on Thursday.

Günther Oettinger, the EU energy commissioner, said new targets were needed for 2030 to enable businesses to plan ahead, as the current targets to produce 20% of Europe's energy from renewable sources run out in 2020. Oettinger was introducing a new EU energy roadmap to 2050, which showed that opting for a very high renewables component to the energy mix would be no more expensive than opting for alternative scenarios that placed more emphasis on nuclear power or coal and gas with carbon capture and storage.


He said that he expected binding renewable energy targets for 2030 to be in place by 2014: "With our roadmap we want to ensure that, for all participants, there should be an interesting discussion on binding targets for renewables by 2030. This should begin now and lead to a decision in two years' time."


It is the first time Oettinger has set out a clear timetrable for new targets. It follows an agreement reached at UN climate talks in Durban on Sunday by which all developed and developing countries agreed to negotiate an international agreement on emissions reductions "with legal force" that would be written and signed by the end of 2015 and would come into force from 2020.


By ensuring that Europe has its own post-2020 emissions and renewable targets decided in 2014, the EU will be in a better place to negotiate as a bloc and to meet the timetable set out in Durban. But the wrangling among member states over what the targets should be is likely to be fierce.


The UK is ahead of the rest in having set a "fourth carbon budget" for emissions reductions in the 2020s, under which plan emissions would be roughly halved by 2025 compared with 1990 levels. Even that has become less certain, however, as the chancellor, George Osborne, wants a review of the targets in 2014.


There is no agreement among other member states on what future targets should be, and several, such as Poland and other east European countries, want weaker targets while some Scandinavian countries want to be tough. Negotiating on targets was hard enough three years ago when the EU's 2020 targets were set. Reopening the discussions in the midst of the worst financial crisis and recession since the war, and with the eurozone looking precarious, will be triply difficult.


Oettinger has also supported weaker targets for 2020 than the climate commissioner, Connie Hedegaard.

Launching the 2050 energy roadmap, Oettinger said: "Only a new energy model will make our system secure, competitive and sustainable in the long-run. We now have a European framework for the necessary policy measures to be taken in order to secure the right investments."


The roadmap puts the share of renewables in total energy use by 2050 at between 55% (in the lowest scenario) and 75% (in the highest scenario) – up to 97% in the share of electricity consumption.


Christian Kjaer, chief executive officer of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) in Brussels said: "The commission's communication could have been clearer in its commitment to binding renewable energy targets for 2030. However, with his strong statement today, Oettinger has provided European industry and citizens with that clarity. The European parliament and council must now give the commission a clear mandate to come forward with ambitious binding 2030 targets for renewable energy."

Greenpeace's EU energy policy director, Frauke Thies, said: "The roadmap shows that getting clean energy from renewables will cost taxpayers no more than getting dirty and dangerous energy from coal or nuclear power. The commission will be tempted to overplay the role of coal and nuclear energy to appease the likes of Poland and France, but the numbers in the roadmap are unequivocal. It proves that a modern energy system can't do without renewables and efficiency, but can easily consign coal and nuclear power to the past."