With the official opening of Oak Ridge National Laboratories ZEBRAlliance project, Seoul Semiconductor (CEO Mr. Chung Hoon Lee, www.seoulsemicon.com) demonstrated how LEDs can help illuminate and define a home’s living area using a fraction of the energy consumed by traditional incandescent and compact fluorescent light bulbs.

ZEBRAlliance – the Zero Energy Building Research Alliance -- is a collaborative effort among Schaad LLC, The Tennessee Valley Authority, the Department of Energy and the Oak Ridge Labs to field-evaluate two pairs of energy-saving residences. It will demonstrate energy conservation efforts that can reduce the load on the existing electrical grid and curb dependence on non-renewable energy sources throughout the project. Energy use, lighting quality and maintenance requirements will be monitored for two years. Data from the house outfitted with Seoul Semiconductor’s Acriche LEDs will be compared against that of a house using compact fluorescent lights.

Seoul Semiconductor’s unique Acriche LED is featured in solid state lighting installed throughout an energy-saving home at the ZEBRAlliance, and were chosen for the trend-setting house because they do not use electronics to convert AC line voltage into DC as do most other solid state lighting devices. The result is a more energy- and cost efficient lighting product.

In addition, LEDs outlast conventional light bulbs – providing more than five times the light for each watt consumed when compared with a typical incandescent light for an energy savings up to 86% -- and exhibit color qualities far preferable to those of traditional bulbs. Acriche will continuously evolve its performance to double its lumen by end of this year.

Seoul Semiconductor plans to extend its LED lighting solution in the market using data culled from what the company is calling “Acriche House.” The name “Acriche” was created by combining the Greek word “Acro,” meaning top, with “rich” to coincide with the company’s ideals of enriching people’s lives with its advanced lighting technology.

Seoul Semiconductor has 5,500 patents, including Acriche product-related technologies, to operate multiple light-emitting cells with AC power, lights the patented Acriche technology of connecting multiple lights cells in a single chip allows for both AC and high voltage DC operation, simplifying operation in many applications including backlighting of LED TVs and solid state lighting.

Brian Wilcox, Vice President of North American sales for Seoul Semiconductor, said, “The ZEBRAlliance project marks the beginning of a new era in home lighting. The United States Congress has mandated elimination of ordinary incandescent bulbs by 2014; Europe did the same last year, banning the sale of incandescent bulbs over 100 watts. This market will grow substantially as consumers realize the benefits of brighter illumination combined with energy efficiencies.”

He added, “Seoul’s participation in this project shows our determination to continue proliferation of this technology and solidify our position as a market leader”.

Photo of the kitchen in the Acriche House, Tennessee