According to an industry executive at the Electronica 2008 exhibition, the integration of intelligence with LED technology will lead to a greater significant energy savings for many lighting applications.

Light is a major consumer of our energy today. Ruediger Mueller, CEO of Osram Opto Semiconductors GmbH, said LED technology has the potential to lower light energy usage by 30 percent. This means total energy use could be slashed by 50 percent. He estimated that 19 percent of global electricity is used for lightning. The LED technology can help reduce light energy consumption by 30 percent, and by adding some intelligence, it goes to 50 percent.

Mueller noted overall LED efficiency has improved by a factor of 50 percent. The LED technology will overtake the other classical technologies. Light is not needed at constant level, but at several levels, and by doing this they can save quite a lot. Mueller stressed the growth of architectural lighting in emerging markets like Shanghai, China, adding that consumers still need to be informed.

Rich Beyer, chairman and CEO, Freescale, predicted a much better balance in the future, adding that the IC industry could meet increasing energy efficiency needs by progressively substituting mechanical parts with electronic components. He noted that LEDs are a semiconductor technology, and that scaling will result in lower prices for LEDs.

Moving to the social aspect of the subject, panelists cited that our society is seeing more and more that energy savings is no longer a luxury.