FIPEL light bulbs - as efficient as LEDs
 

Sadly, the article seems to bash LEDs and CFLs. It almost seems like a sales add. However, it still does introduce a technolgy I've never heard of so I thought I'd post it. I do wonder about the one thing they don't talk about though... cost!

New Lighting Could Replace Fluorescents, CFLs, and LEDs As The Light Source Of The Future | Popular Science

Emissive electroluminescence is LED, a 25k-50k hour life. I have a few LEDs in my house that are rated for 50,000 hours(5.7 continuous operating years).
Field-induced polymer electroluminescence is supposed to be a 20,000 hour life source from what I've read. I've tried to find lumen efficacy on these things and the only information I could find that actually compared the two was at 7000k which is very blue, not daylight CFL colored blue but actually visibly blue and the difference was significant in comparison to CFL efficacy but I don't think it would be better than an LED which also has its sweet spot at around 6000k. I'm not sure how much the efficiency changes when bending it back to a common color temperature most people would probably be after such as 3000k.

The only advantage I see if that since it's a field-induced source instead of emissive, it shouldn't be directional specific as LEDs are. We'll see. To me it's a wait and see thing.

Sorry to activate a nearly-dead thread but I read up a bit more on this - Ars Technica had a nice breakdown of the news release.

One pertinent thing they pointed out was that the amount of light was not much. Yes, the FIPEL technology is efficient, but the amount of light is pretty dim compared to something even as modest as a full moon. As one commentator put it, "that's not lighting."

Is there a reason why it couldn't scale up? Sure, a little 5mm LED isn't enough for general lighting, but an array of them work great.

Promising, but...
 

Sorry I'm so late getting back, my ISP has a less-than-stunning record of reliability.

It would absolutely have to scale up.

I looked at the Ars Technica article and according to that, the FIPEL emitter produces light only 1/25 as intense as a full moon. Now we can all agree that on a clear night a full moon is actually pretty bright, making the landscape light enough to see your way around very clearly...but that's a long way away from actually bright.

I reckon if you were to make the entire ceiling a lighting emitter at that level of intensity it would work...but who wants to replace the entire ceiling when it stops being bright enough? I don't think this technology is ready for prime time. It has a way to go yet.

The cost would likely destroy the benefits... Most likely you could get a fiberoptic strip with a super bright LED for the same cost. You would get just as much light and use very little energy. Once the LED finally burns out all you need to do is replace the LED. The FIPEL you would have to replace the entire thing.

150 lumen/watt LED is not too far off from home improvement store shelves, meaning at prices joe public will tolerate. That is about 2x CFL.

Anything based on semiconductor technology is enjoying a very rapid improvement in efficiency and cost these days. I expect it to continue for years if not decades.

Nearly there
 

I saw a press release from a company called NanoLeaf that is getting ready to produce a heat sink-less LED bulb that delivers 133 lumens per watt. That's better than pretty much anything you can buy on the consumer market. It's even nearly the same shape as a conventional bulb. 75 watts worth of light at 10 watts load, that's really very very good.

I also have seen a couple of press releases from Cree announcing LEDs that deliver as much as 240+ lumens per watt. No idea if those are available, however. When that happens though, I might just relamp the entire house. It would cut my lighting load by a factor of 4.

A 75 watt equivalent lamp drawing 5 watts. It almost boggles the mind.