SIL Europe 2010: China’s SSL industry

China is establishing itself as a global powerhouse for the LED industry. Wu Ling, general secretary of the China Solid State Lighting Alliance, said that SSL is one of the “golden opportunities for developing green and sustainable industries.” She said that if the average LED fixture efficiency reaches 150 lm/W and LED lighting takes 50% of the market, then the annual savings for China will be 340 billion kWh. In comparison, the $24 billion Three Gorges Project has an output of 85 billion kWh/year.

China already has a complete SSL industrial supply chain, with more than 4000 enterprises, and 2009 sales of $11.8 billion. Lighting is a key application: architectural and functional lighting enjoy market shares of 23% and 13%, respectively, compared with 21% for backlighting and 20% for displays. Both the 2008 Olympic Games and the 2010 Shanghai World Expo – which used around 1.05 billion LED chips in various installations – were important showcases for LED lighting.

Wu Ling explained that China has a Municipal Showcase Project involving 21 cities, which between them have already installed over 1.7 million LED fixtures (including 200k roadway lights, and 720k in architectural applications). China also has 4 LED industrial areas and 7 national LED industrial parks.

China’s National Development and Reform Commission has set industrial targets for 2015 of sales in excess of RMB 500 billion ($75 billion), annual electricity savings of 100 billion kWh, and the creation of 1 million jobs. By this stage, China would aim to have 2-3 large-scale LED chip companies and 3-5 leading SSL application companies, said Wu Ling.