According to a survey conducted by TrendForce's Optoelectronics Research Division, LED plant lighting will become one of the fastest-growing lighting applications in 2020, due to the gradual legalization of cannabis cultivation in North America, and the new crown pneumonia epidemic has made the medical and recreational cannabis market scale soaring. In addition, the impact of the epidemic on the food supply chain is gradually showing, and investment in indoor planting agriculture is heating up again. Due to equipment replacement and increased demand for new additions, orders for plant lighting LED companies have grown rapidly since the second quarter. It is estimated that global plant lighting LEDs in 2020 will see USD 158 million, with an annual growth rate of 39.7%.
The current two major demands of indoor planting agriculture are the increase in plant output and the decrease in the cost of lighting equipment. It is necessary to continue to introduce plant lighting solutions through the cooperation between LED supply chains to meet market demand. At present, the plant lighting LED brand factories are mainly signified, fluence by OSRAM, GE Current, Ilumitex, Heliospectra, and Sananbio, etc. The overall efficiency and reliability of the lamps are the main technical indicators considered by the lamp brand factories; while for non-traditional in agriculture, the maintenance cost of LED lighting equipment is the higher part of the long-term operating cost. Therefore, luminaire manufacturers must also consider the life of the luminaire. In addition, the photoelectric conversion efficiency of LEDs, especially red LEDs, is also an important key to reducing the manufacturing cost of lamps. The current mainstream solution in the market adopts medium and high power LEDs. In the future, it is not ruled out that there are better solutions to achieve cost reduction.
Plant LED output light efficiency per watt PPE (mol/J) and the required spectrum of plants are important indicators for increasing plant yield. The main suppliers of LED components for plants are OSRAM, Samsung LED, CREE, Seoul Semiconductor, Lumileds, Nichia, Everlight, etc. Each supplier has its own Competitive advantages of different products, of which Osram Opto Semiconductors and Samsung LED are the market leaders.
Looking forward to the future, in order to ensure food safety, the food supply chain will be shortened through the development of urban indoor planting agriculture and the investment and construction of plant factories. In addition, according to the investment situation of non-traditional agricultural projects, compared with 2019 and 2020 in Europe and the United States. The amount of investment in emerging agricultural technology in Japan has increased significantly, which shows that the capital market has a high degree of interest in it. Among them, lighting equipment is also an important part of plant factories. Most manufacturers see double-digit growth targets for plant lighting LED revenue this year. This move is bound to drive the second wave of growth in the market.
