According to TrendForce’s “2011-2015 European LED Lighting Market Report” by the LED research division LEDinside, European LED lighting market’s rapid growth is attributed to the energy-saving awareness and high electricity prices in Europe, especially the latter. For example, if a 7W LED light bulb (a replacement for 40W incandescent light bulb) is used for eight hours a day for a month (31 days), it can save 8 kWh compared to using an 40W incandescent light bulb. With the electricity prices of EU-27, US$2 can be saved every month by adopting a LED light bulb instead of incandescent one.

As for the future of LED, LEDinside has high hopes for LED commercial lighting’s prospects. Given the global anti-nuclear trend and no room for the electricity prices to dip, the energy-saving demand will only climb. LEDinside predicts that LED price will see a drastic drop starting from 2012 and expects the value of European LED commercial lighting market to reach US$1.9 billion by 2015, seven times more than that in 2011.

Industrial electricity price (EUR/KWh)

Source: LEDinside

LEDinside indicates that more money can be saved by adopting LED lights in the outdoor and commercial lighting sectors due to their high electricity consumptions. LED light bulb’s lower wattage and higher thermal dissipation efficiency will result in better energy-saving efficiency. Thus, high electricity price is one of the most important factors that really spurs European LED lighting market’s growth surge.

As for the indoor lighting, European lighting market is mainly dominated by Philips, OSRAM and GE. In particular, Philips and OSRAM dominate the trend in European LED lighting market; they continue to put efforts into traditional lighting market and channels, but in the meantime, they have been developing their LED products. European LED lighting firms take a more scientific stance on manufacturing LED products, with emphasis on LED components’color temperature, brightness and beam angle.

According to LEDinside, in terms of the color temperature for indoor lighting, Europeans prefer warm white, yellow light (2500K-2700K), while for the commercial lighting they prefer around 3,000K with CRI being above 80.

It is very easy to buy 10W (and lower) LED light bulb and candle light at convenient stores and supermarkets in Europe. However, LED still has a long way to go before it reaches wide adoption in the household lighting market; currently, LED lighting is mainly adopted by new buildings and luxury houses. LED lighting fixtures’ prices are still much higher than those of traditional lighting products, not to mention that at present, LED light bulbs cannot replace traditional ones in terms of beam angle. For this reason, regular consumers are still conservative about using LED lights in their households.