Light Sources and Lighting Circuits

According to machinery statistics of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, in 2011, the quantity of incandescent electric lamps produced in Japan was 725 million units (91.0% year-on-year). Of these, 47 million units were general lamps (66.7% year-on-year) and 28 million units were halogen lamps (79.5% year-on-year). The decrease in total production quantity of incandescent electric lamps is less than 10% only because of the large quantity of automotive lamps included in the statistics. The quantity of fluorescent lamps produced was 284 million units (52.1% year-on-year), and the quantity of general fluorescent lamps, excluding backlights, was 211 million units (84.1% year-on-year). Additionally, the quantity of HID lamps produced was 8.9 million units (91.2% year-on-year). On the other hand, year-on-year sales volumes were 71.2% for general lighting electric lamps, 69.0% for halogen lamps, 85.4% for general fluorescent lamps, 25.1% for backlights, and 91.6% for HID lamps. The compact self-ballasted fluorescent lamp, which had not been separately listed until 2010, had been included in the “other fluorescent lamps” category and specific figures, although not available, are undoubtedly decreasing. According to a report by a private research company, since the Great East Japan Earthquake, sales of bulb-type LED lamps as a percentage of total sales have been increasing rapidly, but compact self-ballasted fluorescent lamps, although higher-efficiency than incandescent electric lamps, have continued to decrease slowly as a percentage of number of sales per month, and consumer awareness of energy savings seems to be directed toward LEDs. To summarize these figures, from a long-term perspective, the replacement of lamps with LED light sources has been steadily progressing, with the fastest rate of progress being exhibited for backlights and relatively slow progress for automotive lamps, which are inexpensive and used in large quantities, and for high-intensity HID lamps. Major exhibitions in 2011 were Lighting Fair 2011, which was held in March in Japan, and Lightfair International 2011, which was held in May in Philadelphia, PA in the USA. Announcements of new products or new research activities concerning incandescent electric lamps were almost non-existent. In the future, as LEDs are used more and more, incandescent electric lamps may only remain significant as a comparative example when discussing color rendering properties and the like. In recent year