Agricultural lighting: local LED companies are optimistic but dare not easily get involved

Current status of LED lighting in China’s agriculture

As countries compete for development, China, which calls itself a major agricultural country, has also followed this development trend and actively joined the field of LED agricultural lighting, and has joined hands with international LED manufacturers to establish a strategic alliance for the research and development of LED plant factories. LEDinside recently surveyed dozens of LED application companies in China. Almost all of them are optimistic about the LED agricultural lighting market and believe that China's LED agricultural lighting market will see benefits within two years. The main reasons are:

1. From the perspective of LED's own characteristics: LED has a cold light source with low heat generation characteristics, small size, compact structure, can illuminate plants at close range, improve the space utilization rate of plant cultivation; it can also emit monochromatic light with a narrow light wave, and can be combined arbitrarily according to needs; these have created a good foundation for the application of LED in agricultural lighting.

2. Driven by the global trend of energy conservation and environmental protection. As the energy crisis becomes increasingly severe, energy conservation and power saving have become a global consensus. Data show that the power consumption of LED is only one-eighth of that of incandescent lamps and one-half of that of fluorescent lamps. It does not contain metallic mercury, waste can be recycled, and is not easy to break, making it the first choice of new green lighting products in countries around the world.

Due to natural reasons, Japan is relatively short of resources. After experiencing the 3.11 earthquake, the exposure of the nuclear crisis has made it pay more attention to the development of energy-saving products LED. Not only has the Japanese government encouraged citizens to save electricity through policies, but Japanese LED companies (such as Sumitomo Chemical, Mitsubishi Chemical, Showa Denko, Konica Minolta Opto) have also increased the production capacity of related products in the LED lighting market in response to the needs of power restrictions and energy conservation.

European and American countries have clearly announced that they will ban the sale of incandescent lamps in 2012. China's 12th Five-Year Plan also clearly pointed out that it will implement the LED lighting rural plan. The first batch of pilot projects of "Village Lighting" in the 12th Five-Year Plan have been officially launched. According to the Qiangmao Group, which is responsible for the construction of this project, the project will be completed before the Lunar New Year of 2012.

3. In terms of China's own national conditions, the Chinese government has always attached importance to the development of agriculture and rural areas, and has been supporting them more and more in recent years. Almost all businesses, including LED companies, agree that the agricultural and rural markets are the markets with the greatest potential in China. The LED manufacturers surveyed by LEDinsded are also optimistic about this market.

Obstacles that need to be overcome in the application of LED lighting in Chinese agriculture

Although most LED manufacturers interviewed by LEDinsded are optimistic about this market and the overseas LED agricultural lighting market is gradually maturing, 70% of the interviewed LED manufacturers choose to wait and see for a year or two before entering this market. They explained that there are still many obstacles for Chinese LED companies to enter this market:

1. Lack of core technology for LED agricultural lighting. Most people believe that the biggest obstacle to China's development of the LED agricultural lighting industry is the lack of companies with core technology.

From the perspective of LED technology, LED core chip technology is currently mostly mastered by Europe, the United States, Japan, South Korea and other countries. Chinese LED companies are mostly in the middle and lower reaches of the industrial chain. This has pushed up the prices of LED agricultural lighting products to a certain extent and increased the cost of promoting LED agricultural lighting products.

In terms of agricultural technologies such as plant planting and cultivation, for pure LED lamp manufacturers, the threshold for LED plant lighting is still relatively high. The special external environment of agriculture places even more stringent requirements on LED light source technology, requiring them to have plant cultivation technology and understand the spectrum required by plants. These technical requirements are not easy to overcome in the short term for most Chinese companies currently in the middle and lower reaches of the LED industry chain.

2. The government's support is relatively small, and companies said they are mostly watching. Most people also pointed out that compared with the current European, American, and Japanese countries, the Chinese government's support for the LED lighting industry is relatively small, which makes a large number of Chinese LED application companies watch and hesitate to invest in this field.

International giants in Europe, America, Japan and other countries have been involved in the field of LED agricultural lighting for a long time, and have now matured. For example, Philips has promoted its LED lighting plan in many countries in Europe and Asia. In China, in April 2011, Philips formally signed a long-term strategic cooperation agreement with Zhonghuan Yida to jointly conduct research and promote the application of LED in the field of plants. During the Optoelectronics Week held in Taiwan recently, Osram, Taiwan Simon Technology, Haoran Technology and Hongkai Industry also exhibited a series of LED plant lighting products.

Japan hopes to become an environmental energy power through green innovation, and has pledged to reduce greenhouse gases by more than 1.3 billion tons by 2020. The country's 100% popularization of energy-saving products such as LEDs has become one of its main means. To this end, Japan has implemented a number of policies to encourage energy conservation and power saving: such as the "extension of the home appliance environmental protection point system" project, low-carbon industry site subsidies for manufacturers that produce LED lighting and other products that have the effect of reducing CO2 emissions, etc. Japan's Mitsubishi Chemical Showa Denko, Potsei and other major LED manufacturers are also vigorously developing LED lighting products for plant factories in their own country.

In contrast, in 2003, the Institute of Agricultural Environment and Sustainable Development of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences also began to engage in research on the application of LED in plant seedling factories. In 2006, it designed and built the first enclosed LED artificial light plant factory in the mainland, and developed corresponding LED light environment control software and light environment control devices. In April 2009, it successfully developed the first intelligent plant factory in the mainland, using LED and fluorescent lamps as artificial light sources, and put it into operation in Changchun. At the end of 2010, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences reached a strategic alliance for the research and development of LED plant factories with famous LED companies such as Philips of the Netherlands, Panasonic of Japan, Everlight of Taiwan, Yangtze, and Oulin.

Although China started the research process of LED application in agriculture as early as the 11th Five-Year Plan, there are not many enterprises and institutions that have entered the field of LED plant lighting compared with the huge number of LED application enterprises in China, and no enterprise has a clear advantage in this field. The enterprises that have entered this field are only conducting small-scale trial production based on other LED applications. There are basically no enterprises or system-level service providers that truly use LED plant lighting as their main business.

LEDinside Analysis

At present, China has many LED application companies. Every new application market of LED will bring new development opportunities to China's huge LED application companies, especially China's LED agricultural lighting applications.

In the future competition in this field, some companies with strong capital strength and taking the lead in entering this field by relying on the advantages of LED technology will be in a favorable position. Although the competition among Chinese LED application companies is very fierce, LED agricultural lighting is still a new field. Most companies are still in the observation and negotiation stage in this field. The competition in China is not fierce at present. In addition, in order to seize the huge LED agricultural lighting application market in China as soon as possible, international LED manufacturers also hope to find cooperation with local Chinese companies. This will be a good opportunity for the development of Chinese LED agricultural lighting companies in the next few years.