LG sets an ambitious plan to become the world’s top five economical-friendly lighting maker
LG Electronics is striving to expand its environment-friendly business with an emphasis on solar cell and next-generation LED. The company held a ground-breaking ceremony for solar cell manufacturing facilities in Gongdan-dong, Gumi city, North Kyungsang Province. LG Electronics’ Vice President, Nam Yong emphasized, “LG will position itself as a leading company in the environment-friendly next-generation energy market.” LG Electronics also announced plans to expand its manufacturing capacity to 1GW and invest 1 trillion won in the solar cell business in order to meet the sales goal of 3 trillion won by 2015.
LG Electronics has been providing solar cell modules to the European market from January. These solar cells are proving so popular that LG announced orders for 120 MW solar cells to be delivered by the end of the year. While Korean and Chinese market players in Europe are mostly adopting the OEM method, LG Electronics is taking a technological approach to the manufacture of both solar cells and modules. Last February, the company was designated a certified tester of solar cell modules by Underwriters Laboratories, the most-renowned safety standardization institute in the U.S. As part of its plans to position itself as one of the world’s five largest environment-friendly lighting makers in the next five years, LG Electronics has been making efforts to enter the global LED market such as creating a separate lighting division as well as developing air conditioning business solutions. Currently, LG Electronics is manufacturing the MR16 LED Lamp to replace halogen lamps, while it is also poised to begin marketing flat lighting, which will redefine office and household lighting conditions.
Furthermore, the company is speeding up preparations to make flat lighting and down lighting manufacturing facilities ready. As for the MR 16, which LG Electronics developed for the first time in Korea, it has proven to be an environment-friendly and highly efficient replacement for existing 20W halogen lamps. This new technology is capable of reducing energy consumption by more than 80% compared with existing lamp products. In addition, the products life span was extended to 50,000 hours, allowing users to enjoy the new technology for 12 hours a day for 10 years without ever having to replace it.