Following is a text version of Jim Brodrick's welcome presentation video from the July 2011 DOE SSL Market Introduction Workshop in Seattle, Washington.
Narrator: The lighting market has shifted…from predictable, well-understood technologies to a world where everything we know about lighting is challenged. Now, the market chain must navigate an ever-expanding range of choices— and varying levels of quality.
James Brodrick, Lighting Program Manager, U.S. Department of Energy: It's not a slam dunk at all.
Margaret Song, Residential Program Manager, Cape Light Compact: There's a lot to learn and everyone's at different places.
Kelly Cota, Lighting Program Manager, National Grid: Everyone wants to get out there and do LED technology but I say walk before you run.
Ed Ebrahimian, Director, Bureau of Street Lighting, City of Los Angeles: LED technology changes so rapidly.
Vireak Ly, Lighting Market Transformation Program Manager, Southern California Edison: There's also a very great variation in the performance of the technology.
James Brodrick: There are products that are really good and some products that aren't so good.
Vireak Ly: The sheer number of LED products that came into the market, it started to overwhelm us.
Chad Bulman, Program Manager, Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance: Our process for evaluating LED products is shifting all the time.
Tod Rosinbum, Senior Engineer, City of Portland, Oregon: There's a lot of technology issues that we're still addressing and we're learning from.
James Brodrick: You can get a lot of benefit but you gotta do your homework first.
Narrator: From cost to performance to reliability — the issues in this technological transformation are complex.
Margaret Song: When we evaluate LED products, we're really looking at over eighty inputs that we have to put in, and it includes things like cost, savings, assumptions for demand, how many hours of usage...
Gabe Arnold, Senior Consultant, Optimal Energy: The LED itself is part of an entire system and we still lack some test methods and standards in order to look at the reliability of those products and account for them.
Vireak Ly: Having tools and standards to help move dimming forward would definitely help the energy-efficiency aspect of the industry.
Edward Smalley, Director, Municipal Solid-State Street Lighting Consortium; Manager, Street Light Engineering, Seattle City Light: We have entered into an era where these items are not supposed to simply last three, four, or five years and then the lamp burns out. These are supposed to last twelve-plus years. You really want to make sure that the organization that you're purchasing these fixtures from will be around then and that you're going to receive the support that you need.
Ed Ebrahimian: Every six months, we go through this process of evaluating various manufacturers, and based on where the technology is, we set our standards.
Narrator: The market has been moved forward through collaboration, and a deepening of available SSL resources.
Chad Bulman: The lynchpin as far as evaluating LED product for us is getting ahold of those independent test lab results, the LM-79 and the LM-80.
Margaret Song: We really are trying to encourage folks to go on to the sites such as CALiPER.
Sarah Eckstein, Commercial Initiatives Associate, Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships: The Design Lights Consortium Qualified Products List is a list that is used as a reference or a guide for those program administrators that run energy-efficiency programs.
Chad Bulman: The Lighting Facts label has been pretty invaluable as far as bringing into focus the metrics that people need to be aware of and to illuminate them in a way that they become more accessible.
Tod Rosinbum: We've been doing two GATEWAY projects with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in evaluating LED streetlights and different sources for street lighting.
Ed Ebrahimian: My main goal is to be able to work with the Consortium and possibly work with other cities and IES to see if we can push forward the formalizing of the standards for LED.
Liesel Whitney-Schulte, Commercial Lighting Program Manager, Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation: One of the most important things that we found is communication with, for us, other program managers and others in the industry who have done projects, to be able to share those experiences.
Chad Bulman: We've been talking to a lot of lighting professionals or those who have close ties to the industry, people like architects and lighting designers.
Edward Smalley: We've learned a lot from our customers, from the experience we've had from communication with them, but we've also learned a lot from our Seattle Police Department, the improved lighting they've also commented on and the advantages that gives to them.
Tod Rosinbum: It's really good to get feedback from the users, from other municipalities who are implementing LED streetlighting: what are their problems, what are their concerns, what are their successes, what are their challenges?
Narrator: It will take effective partnerships, reliable guidance, and constant communication to orchestrate market success for solid-state lighting.