Cree has expanded its portfolio of commercial LED lighting with the addition of the ZR Series LED troffer.
This new product is designed for easy installation without extensive ceiling alterations. It is built to be quickly swapped in for fluorescent troffers in educational, health care and commercial facilities.
“It takes more than incremental improvements in performance to achieve widespread adoption of LED lighting,” said Norbert Hiller, executive vice president of lighting for Cree. “Cree innovation starts with a clean slate, designing a new troffer with an attractive appearance that provides superior light quality, high efficiency and also enables fast installation.”
The ZR Series low voltage LED lighting products come with Cree’s trademark TrueWhite technology, allowing the fixtures to meet or exceed 90-color rendering index. In addition to superior light quality, these devices offer 0- to 10-volt dimming for improved energy maintenance, thereby allowing the fixtures to pay for themselves well ahead of an estimated two-year payback period.
These products – available in 1 foot by 4 feet, 2 feet by 4 feet and 2 feet by 2 feet options – have a service time of 75,000 hours to lower both maintenance and replacement costs, further adding to net savings.
The wave of the future
Cree’s new LED commercial lighting product is part of the next generation of lighting. A recent forecast by Lux Research estimated that the market for LED luminaires will grow from $2 billion today to $25 billion by 2023, representing a compound annual growth rate of 25 percent.
The forecast was compiled through a combination of historical trends and predicted average price reductions. With this data, Lux Research put together a model to calculate the rate of adoption for LED lighting within three markets: street lighting, industrial and office applications.
“As LED packages rapidly fall in cost and improve in efficiency, the cost structure of LED luminaires will shift and present opportunities in other components such as secondary optics and drivers,” said Christopher Hwang, Lux research associate and the lead author of the report.
Hwang noted that these improvements for optics and drivers will be the driving force for the expanded adoption of LED lighting systems as innovations in manufacturing bring prices down. In particular, recessed, roadway and high-bay applications are expected to see the most growth throughout the sector.
