Last week, the City of Baytown, the Texas Department of Transportation and lighting manufacturer BetaLED have jointly made a pilot program on adding LED street lighting to the city. Six conventional 400-watt high pressure sodium fixtures were installed on three light poles located on Highway 146 at the Garth Road overpass. The lights were retrofit with BetaLED’s THE EDGE luminaries.

It’s reported that Alpha Plus Epi Inc., the epi-wafer subsidiary of Tyntek Corp. will spend US$30 million to add 10 to 15 MOCVD chambers in 2011. At present, Alpha Plus is testing seven MOCVD chambers which were recently tooled at its factory in Taichung Industrial Park.

Oklahoma City is likely to install LED lighting in all of the new downtown pedestrian street lamps. It’s said that the local officials who initially reluctant to include LED lighting with Project 180, have reversed course and are looking to put the fixtures in all of the new downtown pedestrian street lamps.

In order to seize the upcoming New Year and Lunar New Year holidays’ market share, it’s reported that first-tier vendors such as Sony、Sharp etc would cut price to promote LED-backlit TVs in the China market. The market estimated the average price drop of foreign brand TVs was about 22% in 2010, while price drops of local brand TVs was about 16%.

Philips Lumileds has played an all-white interactive LED light show with 1,208 custom LED fixtures containing 6,040 high-power LUXEON Rebel LEDs on the curvy sunroof of the Bridge of Peace in Tbisli, Georgia in the former Soviet Union.

Recently, LED lighting systems manufacturer, Raytec has confirmed a major distribution agreement with Harco at the beginning of 2010 to improve the performance of CCTV systems in the Middle East. Since then, Harco Group have deployed Raytec illuminators at a number of high security sites including government and police facilities, industrial buildings, shopping centres as well as private security buildings and villas.

It’s reported that Japan-based Mitsui & Co, which had a huge business network with business involving in the monitor and automobile industries, would purchase 74.693 million to Taiwan LED chipmaker Formosa Epitaxy’s private placement, with having a 15% stake, while Unity Opto Technology would increase its investment and purchase 15.307 million of stake.

Recently, Chicony Electronics’ wholly owned subsidiary, Chicony Power Technology had shipped LED lighting device to Clevo's China retail subsidiary Buynow, which adopted into its shopping malls as well as Clevo's partially invested Chicony department stores. It’s said that Chicony Power’s LED lighting products would emphasized the consumer and enterprise market in china. The company was expected to be list on Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) within the next 1-2 years.

Benefit from stronger shipments for LED TV backlight applications, Taiwan LED chip packaging house Bright LED Electronics wanted to December revenues would be NT$400 million (US$13.5 million) and full year revenues would reach NT$5.1 billion in 2010, with up 20% compared to 2009.

Targeting to help revive an economy struggling with persistent deflation and a rising yen by creating jobs through green and other potential growth industries, Japan has injected $6.4 billion on 153 low-carbon projects across the country over the next 15 months, using government subsidies as seed money and ranging from production of low-emitting cars, lithium-ion batteries, LED lighting and solar panels to energy-saving electrical appliances.  

It’s reported that the Trinamool Congress-led Kolkata Municipal Corporation authorities want to install LED lights across the city after the success of a pilot project to light up the city's streets. The erstwhile Left Front board first decided to modernize streetlights on some major thoroughfares.

Taiwan barcode scanner manufacturer, Marson Technology, has announced the launch of MT7930T dual light source (Bi-color) CCD barcode scanner.

Lately, San Francisco-based Elemental LED has promoted two collections of LED , the Tess 7W and 9W LED Light Bulbs, to replace standard incandescent and CFL bulbs. These light bulbs are able to produce the same brightness as 40W and 60W standard light bulbs respectively, but use less than 20 percent as much electricity. The new LED bulbs screw into any standard E26/E27 base. That translates into major savings on electricity bills as well as a dramatically reduced carbon footprint.

SavWatt USA has launched its high power LED Street Lights. In contrast with High Pressure Sodium Lamps, SavWatt's LED street lights can save about 50% - 70% in energy consumption. Plus, the lifespan of LED street lamps is 3 - 5 times longer than Sodium Lamps'.  

It’s announced that LG will unveil the world's largest 72-inch full LED 3D TV at Consumer Electronics Show 2010 starting January 6. This full LED 3D TV boasts of Smart TV feature that pulls premium content like video on demand and App Store. It also features True motion 480Hz technology that promises almost no jarring images while watching fast action videos on the screen. It suits for watching 3D and 2D multimedia content.

Kouichi Okamoto in Japan has created an interesting balloon lamp, which is made of rubber, polypropylene, LED lighting and a lithium-coin battery. Thanks to the LED, this new lamp is energy efficient and can be used continuously over 100 hours by using the 2 lithium batteries.

Currently, Hill County has acquired a State Energy Conservation Office (SECO) $86,365 grant as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Ameresco was reported to enter into a long-term Energy Savings Performance Contract (ESPC) with the City of Greenville, South Carolina. It is now in the process of a series of system upgrades that will not only save the City an estimated $330,000 annually over a 15-year term but also reduce Greenville’s carbon footprint.

Lately, PV manufacturer Trina Solar has booked totaling $23.8 million order from GT Solar for its DSS450HP™ crystalline ingot growth systems. The orders will be included in GT Solar's backlog for its current Q3 FY11, which ends on January 1, 2011. The additional DSS450HP systems will help Trina Solar achieve its goal of significantly expanding its manufacturing capacity.  

Recently, the Plant Operations crew has supported Buttrick Hall, a classroom building on Vanderbilt University’s campus to complete the replacement of 150 50-watt MR-16 halogen light bulbs with 6-watt LED bulbs. The new LED lights will save 57,000 kilowatt hours per year and avoid producing approximately 34 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. “Going with LED lights made the most sense,” said Paul Netter, the Plant Operations manager who initiated and helped complete the changeover.

Downtown Gaylord of USA has received a $50,000 grant from the State's Economic Recovery Monies and planed to replace 86 lights on main street with new LED lights.   The new lights will be dark-sky compliant, and the total cost of the project will be $62,000.In addition, they will also save the city an expected $5,500 a year. The plan is to save money and replace the rest of the 145 total lights in the downtown area.

Recently, LED chipmaker Epistar decided to issue euro convertible bonds (ECBs) worth US$280 million, with using for paying back previous US dollar-based loans and for future equipment purchases. Epistar noted, although it’s said LED industry would display over supply in 2011, the company remained optimistic about the future potential LED market growth, and was ready for capacity expansion for future demand. In the LED lighting market, the company planed to expand its capacity to meet continuing growing demand.

Industry sources noted china’s LED industry would install 700-800 units of MOCVD equipment in 2011 compared to 330 units installed in 2010, which may take China's LED industry to catch up with Taiwan. It’s reported that a Chinese LED maker had booked about 400-500 MOCVD machines to Germany-based Aixtron, with the shipment’s delivery lead time pushed to 3Q11.

Sino-American Silicon Products (SAS) wanted to sapphire wafer materials’ sales would reach 5-6% of revenues in 2011 from 2% estimated for 2010. A leader of the company said, SAS was ready for producing 120,000-180,000 units LED sapphire substrates in 2011 from 60,000 in 2010. The new adding capacity would bring much more business sales.

MOCVD Subsidy Policy Implemented by Yangzhou Municipal Government to End in July 2011

The city of Milan installs a dazzling LED light display portraying a cluster of outdoor clotheslines to celebrate Christmas. As part of the 2010 Milan LED Light Festival that kicked off earlier this month and runs until mid-January, Italian designer Fabio Novembre created “Ieri, Oggi, Domani” (“Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow), a dazzling LED tribute to Italy’s cultural appreciation of clotheslines.

Recently, the United States Patent Office has certificated Spectros white LED patent. In a reexamination of U.S. Patent No. 6,711,426, the Patent Office has affirmed that Spectros' use of White LEDs in medical spectroscopy is unique and protectable, and that certain other applications in biomedical and industrial spectroscopy devices also fall under this Spectros patent. The core Spectros white LED patent will reissue next year.

Newport News Park’s displays are being replaced by LED bulbs to celebrate the festival.

Washington, D.C. has selected Lighting Science Group's high-performance PROLIFIC series LED street lights for energy saving. The new light fixtures will be paid for from American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds and will begin to be installed in early 2011.The first of the new lights will be installed in alleys across the District, beginning in Wards 7 and 8.

China company BYD Co., Ltd (BYD) has prepared to present their "Three Green Dreams" Strategy at the 2011 North America International Auto Show (NAIAS) from January 10th to 23rd. It’s BYD's fourth consecutive appearance at the Detroit COBO Center for the Auto Show.