Max Tech and Beyond: High-Intensity Discharge Lamps
High-intensity discharge (HID) lamps are most often found in industrial and commercial applications, and are the light source of choice in street and area lighting, and sports stadium illumination. HID lamps are produced in three types - mercury vapor (MV), high pressure sodium (HPS) and metal halide (MH). Of these, MV and MH are considered white-light sources (although the MV exhibits poor color rendering) and HPS produces a yellow-orange color light. A fourth lamp, low-pressure sodium (LPS), is not a HID lamp by definition, but it is used in similar applications and thus is often grouped with HID lamps. With the notable exception of MV which is comparatively inefficient and in decline in the US from both a sales and installed stock point of view; HPS, LPS and MH all have efficacies over 100 lumens per watt. The figure below presents the efficacy trends over time for commercially available HID lamps and LPS, starting with MV and LPS in 1930's followed by the development of HPS and MH in the 1960's. In HID lamps, light is generated by creating an electric arc between two electrodes in an arc tube. The particles in the arc are partially ionized, making them electrically conductive, and a light-emitting 'plasma' is created. This arc occurs within the arc tube, which for most HID lamps is enclosed within an evacuated outer bulb that thermally isolates and protects the hot arc tube from the surroundings. Unlike a fluorescent lamp that produces visible light through down-converting UV light with phosphors, the arc itself is the light source in an HID lamp, emitting visible radiation that is characteristic of the elements present in the plasma. Thus, the mixture of elements included in the arc tube is one critical factor determining the quality of the light emitted from the lamp, including its correlated color temperature (CCT) and color rendering index (CRI). Similar to fluorescent lamps, HID lamps require a ballast to start and maintain stable operating conditions, and this necessitates additional power beyond that used by the lamp itself. HID lamps offer important advantages compared to other lighting technologies, making them well suited for certain applications. HID lamps can be very efficient, have long operating lives, are relatively temperature-insensitive and produce a large quantity of light from a small package. For these reasons, HID lamps are often used when high levels of illumination are required over large areas and where operating and maintenance costs must be kept to a minimum. Furthermore, if the installation has a significant mounting height, high-power HID lamps can offer superior optical performance luminaires, reducing the number of lamps required to illuminate a given area. The indoor environments best suited to HID lamps are those with high ceilings, such as those commonly found in industrial spaces, warehouses, large retail spaces, sports halls and large public areas. Research into efficacy improvements for HID lighting technologies has generally followed market demand for these lamps, which is in decline for MV and LPS, has reached a plateau for HPS and is growing for MH. Several manufacturers interviewed for this study indicated that although solid-state lighting was now receiving the bulk of their company's R&D investment, there are still strong HID lamp research programs, which concentrate on MH technologies, with some limited amount of investment in HPS for specific niche applications (e.g., agricultural greenhouses). LPS and MV lamps are no longer being researched or improved in terms of efficacy or other performance attributes, although some consider MH HID lamps to be the next-generation MV lamp. Thus, the efficacy values of commercially available MV, LPS and HPS lamps are not expected to increase in the next 5 to 10 years. MH lamps, and more specifically, ceramic MH lamps are continuing to improve in efficacy as well as light quality, manufacturability and lamp life. Within an HID lamp, the light-producing plasma must be heated to sufficiently high temperatures to achieve high efficiencies, without melting the electrodes or altering the operating conditions of the lamp. The research in ceramic MH has focused on the arc tube, the electrodes and the plasma, resulting in an innovation announced by Philips Lighting in 2009 called the 'unsaturated lamp.' The unsaturated lamp addresses a problem experienced by standard ceramic MH lamps where a pool of liquid salt develops in the arc tube while the lamp is operating. This pool of liquid salt limits the light characteristics of the lamp such as the efficacy and color quality, and reduces lamp lifetime. By making modifications to the arc tube, the pressure and the operating temperature, the unsaturated ceramic MH lamp resolves this issue by keeping all the halide salts in the gaseous phase, even while the lamp is dimming (down to 50%).
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Environmental Energy Technologies Division
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 1047755
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL-5402E; TRN: US201216%%697
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
BRIGHTNESS
CERAMICS
COLOR
ELECTRIC ARCS
ELECTRODES
FLUORESCENT LAMPS
FOCUSING
HALIDES
ILLUMINANCE
LIFETIME
LIGHT BULBS
LIGHT SOURCES
MAINTENANCE
MANUFACTURERS
MELTING
MERCURY
MINIATURIZATION
MIXTURES
OPTIMIZATION
PHOSPHORS
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
SODIUM
VISIBLE RADIATION