lighting

A doctor devised a “solar suitcase” to provide emergency lighting and power for medical procedures conducted in regions without access to a consistent source of electricity.Ethiopian television has created a children’s show to increase functional literacy in the country by using a popular puppet to teach youth the overwhelming 231 characters of their native language.An organization in India offers affordable, potable water via solar-powered “water ATMs” to people living on less than $2 a day.These extraordinary efforts that use technology to benefit humanity are among the 15 projects announced today as recipients of the 2011 Tech Awards, presented by Applied Materials in partnership with the Tech Museum.

Light emitting diodes (LEDs) look great. They have a long lifetime. They are environmentally benign. And if that weren’t enough, LEDs used for displays and illumination save serious amounts of energy compared to the incumbent technology they aim to replace.LEDs consume so much less energy that governments around the world are phasing out the use of incandescent bulbs. The implication of this is huge for energy savings. A new report released by the Department of Energy analyzed market segments where LEDs are competing or are poised to compete with traditional light sources (e.g., incandescent and fluorescent) for general illumination applications, outdoor lighting, and consumer electronic displays. The report findings include the following powerful statistics:

 On Wednesday, President Obama reminded us that “in America, innovation isn’t just how we change our lives. It’s how we make a living.” This rings especially true at Applied Materials as our livelihoods depend on changing lives through technology in big ways. We were encouraged to hear President Obama’s plans for the Better Buildings Initiative, focused on increasing high efficiency lighting, on-site renewable energy generation, insulation and coatings and advanced HVAC control technologies. At Applied Materials, we’re providing a map on how to get there and developing solutions in each of these categories.

Buildings consume 40% of all energy in the U.S., 72% of all electricity and 55% of all natural gas. In the U.S., we spend $350 billion on energy for buildings … and that number is growing. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that current trends in energy demand for buildings will stimulate about half of energy supply investments through 2030. If building site energy consumption in China and India grows to current U.S. levels, China’s and India's consumption will be about four and seven times greater than they are today.

I am pleased to share with you an update on Applied Ventures as we celebrate our fund's fifth anniversary. Over these past five years, we have had the privilege of investing more than $100 million dollars in 27 companies, mostly in cleantech, making us one of the most active investors in the space.

Organic light emitting diodes (OLED) are a next step in the evolution of solid state lighting technology, complementing inorganic LEDs. This week, Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research awarded an important research grant to Applied Materials, Merck KGaA and the Technical University of Braunschweig (TU-BS).

As countries look for ways to reduce their carbon footprints, lighting, which uses nearly 20% of the world’s energy, has become a key target — and increasingly solid state lighting (both LED and OLED-based) is being explored as an energy-efficient answer. We’ve all heard about LEDs, but what about OLEDs? Both generate light using semiconductor technology, use less energy and are typically longer lasting than the incandescent or gas filled bulbs they are slated to replace: but that is where the resemblance stops.