Around the Industry

June 10, 2011
Osram plans to stay the course on R&D and acquisitions To build on its base as the second-largest player in an industry that's expected to grow 44 percent

Osram plans to stay the course on R&D and acquisitions

To build on its base as the second-largest player in an industry that's expected to grow 44 percent to $94.4 billion by 2016, Osram Sylvania will continue acquiring other lighting companies and pumping millions into R&D. According to a Reuters article, Wolfgang Dehen, Osram's CEO, said the company would continue spending an average of 5.5 percent of sales on R&D, slightly less than what market leader Royal Philips Electronics NV spends annually on R&D. The Reuters reporters said Dehen told reports at a recent press conferences in Munich, “The lighting business will see dramatic changes like we've not seen in the past 30 years. If you look at what we did in the past, that's going to be a good indicator going forward.”

GE Energy buys into solar firm

GE Energy, Atlanta, has invested in eSolar, a provider of next-generation, tower-based concentrating solar thermal technology. MetCap Energy Investments, a Turkish investor and developer of power projects, plans to collaborate with GE in this investment. “When we look at the long-term future of power generation, we see the importance of integrating natural gas and renewable energy sources in new and innovative ways to provide energy that is cleaner, more cost effective and more reliable,” said Paul Browning, president and CEO-Thermal Products for GE Energy, in a press release.

DOE awards $14 million to LED manufacturers to fund research

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded nearly $15 million to lighting manufacturers to support eight new research and development projects that will accelerate the development and deployment of high-efficiency solid-state lighting technologies like LEDs and OLEDs. The projects are focused on advancing core R&D goals, developing new products and expanding domestic manufacturing capacity to help the U.S. remain competitive in this growing technology market. Research facilities for Cree Inc., Goleta, Calif. ($1.61 billion), and Lumileds Lighting Co., San Jose, Calif. were among the award winners.