DOE looks at LED lighting's life-cycle costs

The U.S. Department of Energy, as part of its focus on the solid-state lighting market, released the first report in a three-part series on measuring the full life-cycle costs of various lighting technologies for screw-base lamp applications.

The first report on this study, Review of the Life-Cycle Energy Consumption of Incandescent, Compact Fluorescent, and LED Lamps (PDF), is "based on existing life-cycle assessment literature of lighting products (including academic publications as well as manufacturer and independent research reports) and looks at three life-cycle phases – manufacturing, transportation (from factory to retailer), and use – comparing the energy consumed and considering how that consumption might change in the future for LED lamps," says DOE in its release announcing the report.

"The second part of the project should be completed this summer and involves a life-cycle environmental analysis of the direct and indirect material and process inputs to make the LED products. The third and final part of the life-cycle effort, which is expected to be finished by October, involves taking the products apart and chemically testing them using existing testing standards, to determine what materials they contain, and in what concentrations. A final report will combine the results of all three analyses to provide a basis for comparing the full environmental tradeoffs between LED and conventional lighting sources."