There has been quite some activity in the Middle East and African lighting markets lately. One of Middle East’s largest LED installation projects has been rolled out by Dubai this week, and under the government project 160,000 LED light bulbs will be installed in 2,000 new houses. In Africa, the Zambian government’s decision to phase out incandescent bulbs has encouraged local LED manufacturer The Zambia Electrometer to scale up annual LED bulb production by four times to 2 million LED bulbs.

Cree announces Essentia® by Cree, a new brand of commercial lighting products that offer a broad range of high quality lighting solutions at a great value.  Created in response to market demand, Essentia by Cree branded products will meet industry competitive efficacy of 90+ LPW and color temperatures between 2700k and 5000k that customers have come to expect from Cree as the leading LED lighting technology supplier. This new brand compliments market leading Cree branded lighting products and provides the industry with more high quality lighting that leverage Cree’s market leading LED capabilities.

Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) have for the first time experimentally demonstrated that copper nanophotonic components can operate successfully in photonic devices - it was previously believed that only gold and silver components have the required properties for this. Copper components are not only just as good as components based on noble metals, but, unlike them, they can easily be implemented in integrated circuits using industry-standard fabrication processes. "This is a kind of revolution - using copper will solve one of the main problems in nanophotonics," say the authors of the paper. The results have been published in the scientific journal Nano Letters.

Elemental LED, a leading U.S. based engineering and technology company that manufactures LED lighting solutions announced today a partnership with sales agency Lightspec that extends the Diode LED product brand into upstate New York. Elemental LED and its wholesale and manufacturing division, Diode LED provides a wide variety of superior quality linear, task, and accent LED lighting solutions for both residential and commercial applications.

Crisp white LED streetlights rolled out by European and American cities have not always been welcomed by local residents, many have complained about its strong glare and unforgivingly powerful light beams streaming through windows that have been compared to transforming living rooms into football fields by upset residents.

Tridonic Jennersdorf GmbH, a subsidiary of Tridonic GmbH & Co KG, Dornbirn and part of the Zumtobel Group, has entered into a settlement agreement with the AOC International (Europe) B.V. and AOC International (Europe) GmbH for the use of silicate-based white LEDs. 

NEMA’s Electroindustry Business Conditions Index (EBCI) for current conditions in North America fell back in February, dropping to 44.4 from 50 the previous month as more panelists reported conditions eroded than improved. Compared to January, smaller shares of the survey panel reported both that business conditions improved (22% in February compared to 41% in January) and that they deteriorated (33% in February compared to 41% in January). A plurality of panelists (44%) claimed conditions were unchanged in February. A considerably smaller 18% held this view a month ago.

SoraaLaser, a world leader in commercialization of visible laser light sources, will present its innovative light source technology at Strategies in Light conference, March 1-3, in Santa Clara, CA. These advanced light sources feature unique performance properties such as collimated output and waveguide delivery, and provide compelling advantages over LED, OLED, and legacy sources in specialty lighting.

Cree, Inc. records another LED industry first with the demonstration of a single high-power LED delivering nearly 1,600 lumens at 134 lumens-per-watt (LPW) with similar color quality as an incandescent light bulb. With this result, Cree achieved a breakthrough 25 percent increase in lumens per watt (LPW) over production LEDs of similar color quality under operating conditions found in real-world LED lighting applications. This important milestone coupled with Cree’s latest SC5 Technology™ platform will lead to LED systems with increased performance, lower cost and better light.

Panasonic Corporation, Japan, Panasonic Lighting Europe , Germany and Tridonic, a leading manufacturer of lighting components and part of the Zumtobel Group of Austria, today announced that they have entered into a patent license agreement. With this agreement the parties grant each other a license to use certain patents in the field of lighting electronics, mainly in the field of control and operation of LED light sources. The specific terms of the settlement will remain confidential.

The Zambia Electrometer has raised its LED bulb production to 2 million per year following the Zambian government’s decision to ban incandescent bulb imports, according to a report from the Times of Zambia.

Simon announced that it is conducting a pilot program in conjunction with Acuity Brands that will employ outdoor LED lighting systems to monitor parking lot vehicle counts and occupancy data to facilitate the efficient management of traffic and parking. The pilot will be conducted at Lenox Square in Atlanta, GA and Florida Mall in Orlando, Florida.

Three major Pilot Lines, which help SMEs take photonics technologies from lab into market, have been launched today by the Photonics Public Private Partnership (PPP). The Pilot Lines mean that thousands of high tech SMEs in Europe - who often lack access to advanced, cost-intensive infrastructures and expertise needed to manufacture new and innovative products – will be able to take their good ideas, scale-them up and validate them with the first customers for commercial production. The Pilot Lines will focus on health applications, flexible organic light-emitting diodes and sensors for the detection of chemicals in gas and liquids. 

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has published a report on the performance of newly commercially available flicker meters. The purpose of the study was simply to report on the availability and performance of these meters. Flicker is garnering increased attention across the lighting community, and gaining a better understanding of why flicker matters and how much it varies among lighting products is becoming more and more essential to proper lighting design.

Technavio analysts forecast the global automotive organic light-emitting diode (OLED) marketto post a CAGR of more than 14% by 2019, according to their latest report.

North American quantum dot manufacturer Quantum Materials announced that the company has entered into a joint venture with Guanghui Technology Group (“GTG”) whereas GTG will invest US $20 Million for building out Quantum Materials QDX™ quantum dot production facilities and quantum dots application development in China. Embedding quantum dot production regionally allows Quantum Materials to work closely with clients to customize quantum dot characteristics to optimize manufacturing efficiencies as well as supply chain logistics.

Fourth Quarter 2015 Highlights Revenues of US $106.5 million, down 6% compared with the same period last year GAAP net loss per share of $0.25 and Non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.01 Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA of $4.4 million 

New York State Senate Jack Martins stated earlier last week that he has secured US $250,000 state funding for Village of Great Neck LED streetlight conversion, reported the Island Now.

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) will supply 2,000 existing and new homes from the Mohammed Bin Rashid Housing Establishment (MBRHE) project with 160,000 LED light bulbs and photovoltaic panels. The move aims to reduce the demand for energy as well as the long- and medium-term costs for electricity, the plan follows the signing of a MoU between DEWA and MBRHE in 2015.

Residents living in Kent County Council in UK have been discontent with the glare and overtly bright new LED streetlights, according to a report by Kent and Sussex Courier.

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have developed a water purification plant that provides clean water far beyond the reach of the electrical grid - thanks to solar cells. With the help of Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus, these small and portable solar cell stations have now been placed across rural Bangladesh.

PSCo are pleased to announce that they will be distributing Samsung’s much anticipated portfolio of LED in the UK and Ireland. PSCo have placed the first ever order for Samsung’s 1.5mm ultra fine pixel pitch LED as a demonstration unit for their Reading showroom, demonstrating their commitment to both Samsung and channel partners.

Osram is putting the focus on sustainable growth and wants to take even greater advantage of the potential offered by semiconductor-based lighting technologies. Prior to that, another important strategic step, the carve-out process of the general lighting lamps business, got under way. Given Osram’s strong financial standing, the company is proposing a dividend of €0.90 per share at Tuesday’s AGM. In parallel, Osram has in the meantime also started a share buyback program of up to €500 million.

Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), a Public Energy Services Company under the administration of Ministry of Power, Government of India (GoI) is successfully running the Hosa Belaku Yojana in Karnataka since December 2015. Under this initiative, more than 2.3 million (23 lakh) LED bulbs have been distributed and the success of the programme can be attributed to the people of the state who have come forward and joined this scheme to make their homes energy efficient.

Current, powered by GE, announced a deal with JPMorgan Chase & Co. to install LED lighting across most of Chase's U.S. branches. Potentially spanning 25 million square feet across roughly 5,000 branches, the project is the world's largest single-order LED installation to date. Current estimates that, once completed, the project could reduce the branches' lighting-related energy use by more than 50 percent– equal to taking nearly 27,000 cars off the road.

The Department of Energy released a new proposed efficiency rule for General Service Lamps, better known as lightbulbs. This proposed rule will make it easier for consumers to make cost-effective, energy efficient choices for lighting their homes and offices. This proposal marks the next step of a public process that has been underway for more than two years and will continue over the course of this year.

Researchers at Queen’s University’s Human Media Lab have developed the world’s first full-colour, high-resolution and wireless flexible smartphone to combine multitouch with bend input. The phone, which they have named ReFlex, allows users to experience physical tactile feedback when interacting with their apps through bend gestures.

At this year’s Annual General Meeting (AGM), OSRAM Licht AG Chief Executive Olaf Berlien gave details of the innovation and growth initiative to the lighting company’s shareholders. “Everyone’s talking about digitalization – but we’re investing in it,” Berlien said in Munich on Tuesday. “Only those who navigate through the dramatically changing lighting industry decisively and with courage and speed can be successful.” Through this initiative, Osram is putting the focus on sustainable growth and wants to take even greater advantage of the potential offered by semiconductor-based lighting technologies. Prior to that, another important strategic step, the carve-out process of the general lighting lamps business, got under way. “The operational carve-out is planned as of April 1, while the legal carve-out is planned as of July 1,” said Berlien, confirming the timeline announced earlier.

Veeco Instruments Inc., the world’s leading supplier of metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) systems, announced today that it has signed a joint development project (JDP) agreement with imec, the Belgium-based nano-electronics research center.  The collaboration is expected to accelerate the development of highly-efficient, Gallium Nitride (GaN) based, power electronic devices using GaN Epi wafers created using Veeco’s Propel® Power GaN MOCVD system.

DOE's CALiPER program has published a new Snapshot Report on LED MR16 lamps, which updates a similar Snapshot Report published in January 2014. In the past two years, LED technology has progressed rapidly, but the progress has been much slower for LED MR16s. The increase in mean efficacy is about half of that seen for other categories, and lumen output and center beam intensity (CBCP) haven't notably increased in recent years either. There are still no listed lamps at a given beam angle that meet the expected CBCP values for a 50W halogen MR16 using the ENERGY STAR® calculator – although several now meet the minimum threshold required by ENERGY STAR for claiming equivalency to a 50W halogen MR16.