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‘It is cost- competitive and somewhere between two and a half and three times more efficient than the best LED technology.’

In a fitting an LED will do 35-40lm/W and we’re doing 100lm/W. But the real break point between plasma and LEDs is that we’re operating at anywhere between 100W and 5kW – it’s ideal for solutions at that level – whereas LEDs are typically very low power,’ says Reynolds.

Performance claims are impressive. Lifetime is 40,000 hours, and because the technology works without electrodes, a number of drawbacks associated particularly with quartz metal halide are overcome, says Reynolds. ‘When you’re comparing plasma sources with CMH and metal halide one of the advantages is lumen maintenance.
‘Because we have no electrodes and it’s a thick quartz source, our lumen maintenance is 90 per cent through life. And there’s no colour shift.’

Usually with ultra-efficient sources the trade-off is the quality of the light (think low- pressure sodium). But a high CRI of 96 is possible with the source still at around 90lm/W system efficiency, and even when dimmed the colour quality remains stable.
If ultra efficiency is called for, a CRI of 75 will push output to 110lm/W. Colour temperature ranges from 2500K to 12,500K

We’re showing luminaire efficiencies of between 93 and 95 per cent,’ says Reynolds.‘It is almost the fixture-maker’s dream in terms of the small size and the spectral distribution. It’s very small, it’s very intense, but not a point source.

PLASMA LIGHTS THE WAY AHEAD pdf FX Magazine.