Hybrid Lighting Technology: Making the old Incandescent Efficient for the 21st Century

Improving the Incandescent Bulb Through Green Technologies
Hybrid lighting is a general lighting technology that dramatically improves the energy efficiency of the incandescent light bulb. Hybrid light bulbs provide the same wonderful light quality and comfort attributes as incandescent with no sacrifice in performance inherent in other energy efficient lighting technologies.

What Is The Technology?
Over 80% of the energy consumed by incandescent lamps is wasted as heat, or infra-red (IR) energy. Hybrid lighting technology recycles this large amount of heat, converting it to useable light energy, allowing for lamp designs that require much less energy while delivering the same amount of light as their incandescent equivalent.

Hybrid light bulbs begin with a tungsten filament similar to that found in an incandescent lamp. This filament is surrounded by a gas-filled transparent capsule that is used to protect and align the filament while creating a halogen ‘cleansing’ cycle that extends lamp life.

Nano Thin Film Coating
A specialized thin-film coating is applied to the outside of the capsule that redirects wasted infrared radiation (IR), or heat, back onto the filament to generate more light. Therefore, lamps may be designed that require less energy while maintaining the same amount of light output. Compared to the common incandescent light bulb, this Hybrid light technology is currently capable of decreasing the energy consumption to one-third.

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Escalating Technology Advancements
Hybrid technology is developing rapidly. Advancements in capsule design and coating technologies over the last 19 years have increased the energy efficiency of incandescent lamps more than has been witnessed in the previous 111.

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The Future is Even Brighter
While commercially available Hybrid lamps typically produce approximately 20 to 22 lumens per watt and engineering prototype lamps now produce up to 45 lumens per watt, much greater upside potential exists. A theoretical limit of over 100 lumens per watt can be achieved through IR recapture alone which involves optimization of the filament, the capsule, the coating, and their inter-relationship. Further upside potential exists through the minimization of end losses and improved gas designs.

As recaptured IR increases, energy efficiency increases non-linearly whereby smaller technology advancements have the potential to generate even higher gains in lamp efficacy.

Commercially Available
Approximately 35 million Hybrid light bulbs are sold annually today but not all utilize the full potential of today's technology. Recent coating developments now allow for lamps that are twice as efficient as commercially available Hybrid products. A wider range of light bulbs with improving efficacies are expected to be launched globally over the next several years.

Hybrid Lighting
The True Replacement for the Incandescent Light Bulb.