Universal Display Corporation announced that it has been awarded a $1.65 million, two-year contract from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to demonstrate a thin, highly-efficient, white OLED lighting concept for under-cabinet applications.

Under terms of the contract, Universal Display will deliver a set of under-cabinet lighting units to the DOE. Each unit will consist of five 6” x 6” white PHOLED lighting panels. The units will be designed to provide comparable performance to existing under-cabinet systems, have a system efficiency of > 60 lumens per watt, and exhibit a significantly thinner form factor than conventional under-cabinet lighting products currently in the market. This thin form factor has the potential to expand the array of possible under-cabinet lighting design concepts and to simplify product installation.

This is the second potential commercial lighting application in development by Universal Display. In 2008, the Company began working with Armstrong World Industries on a ceiling-based OLED lighting system, also supported, in part, through the DOE Solid State Lighting Program.

The DOE has made a long-term commitment to advance the development and introduction of energy-efficient white lighting sources for general illumination. According to industry estimates, electric bills for lighting alone are over $200 billion per year on a worldwide basis. It has been estimated that by 2016, white OLEDs could generate well over $20 billion in worldwide savings of electricity costs and could save over nine million metric tons of carbon emissions from the U.S. alone.