AUSTRALIAN Industry Minister, Ian Macfarlane, announced on Wednesday September 26 that BluGlass Limited had been offered a $5 million Australian Government Commercial Ready grant to help commercialise its innovative energy-efficient lighting project.
Macfarlane said the Sydney-based company’s technology will significantly cut the cost of producing a core component of light emitting diodes (LEDs).
“LEDs do many different jobs in the electronic world — from forming the numbers on digital clocks to transmitting information from remote controls or simply indicating when an appliance is turned on,” Macfarlane said.
“BluGlass owns a patented process for making low-cost gallium nitride wafers, a core element of LEDs.
“This innovation has great potential, with the gallium nitride market expected to double over the next four years to more than $10.8 billion.
“LEDS are the future of lighting because of their high energy efficiency, robust construction, long life, excellent light brightness and colour quality and their use of environmentally friendly materials.
“They outperform bulbs, are comparable with, but will soon exceed fluorescents and, in time, will replace the old bulbs.
“Energy efficiency has a crucial role to play in reducing carbon emissions so we are excited by the potential of this technology.”
Macfarlane said the product would have the same impact on high-tech industries as the advent of the silicon chip did decades ago.
“LEDs can be found in products as diverse as mobile phones and personal digital assistants, traffic lights and household lamps.
They have low power requirements, use up to 80 per cent less energy and last up to 100 times longer than bulbs.”
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