With advantages such as reasonable price, energy efficiency, high luminescence efficiency and high durability, diverse styles, LED (light emitting diode) products are becoming attractive to Vietnamese consumers.

As a result of the Vietnam Energy Efficient Public Lighting (VEEPL) project funded by GEF (Global Environment Facility) and UNDP (United Nations Development Program), it is forecasted that by 2014, one hundred percent of street lights in Vietnam will be HPS (High Pressure Sodium) bulbs and CFL (Compact Fluorescent Light) bulbs; and all indoor lights will be T8, T5 and CFL lamps. The use of those types of energy efficient lighting equipment will allow Vietnam to save millions of kWh of electricity each year.

The Song Han Bridge is decorated with LED lights

Notably, if LED bulbs are used to replace incandescent bulbs, electricity consumption can be reduced by more than 88 percent; and if fluorescent tubes are replaced with LED lamps, more than 44 percent of electricity consumption can be saved. If it replaces all CFL, T5, T8 and HPS bulbs with LED bulbs, Vietnam will be able to save at least 40 percent of the total amount of electricity required for lighting purposes.

For its advantages, LED technology is expected to become popular in Vietnam, meeting the high domestic demand for lighting equipment.

Widespread use

LED technology has penetrated the Vietnamese market in the way it entered many other countries in the world. In Vietnam, this technology is being used mostly to light up advertising boards and traffic signs.

LED advertising boards are being used widely, which can be found in showrooms, drawing-rooms, reception halls, and on streets. LED lights are also used for indoor and outdoor decoration purposes, especially in restaurants, hotels and festivals.

In the transport sector, LED bulbs are used to replace incandescent bulbs to light up the traffic signs on streets, roads and bridges. In 2008, LED lighting systems were installed on the Song Han and Thuan Phuoc bridges in the city of Da Nang. These are the first public lighting systems using LED technology in Vietnam. They are not only energy efficient but also have aesthetic value, which have become symbolic works of Da Nang.

In fact, however, the use of LED technology for indoor and outdoor lighting purposes in Vietnam remains unpopular yet. Presently, only a few places in the country have LED lighting systems on streets and alleys. Specifically, the city of Da Nang has replaced 55 HPS lighting systems with LED lighting systems. The city of Hai Phong has done the same thing with 12 lighting systems. Can Tho has become the first city in Vietnam having LED lighting systems using solar batteries instead of the national power grid.

In the Hoa Lac High Tech Park, Hanoi, LED lighting systems using wind turbines and solar batteries have been installed for outdoor lighting purposes. These systems have 1,000W LED bulbs with a luminescence efficiency of 75ml per W, which are equivalent to traditional 150W HPS bulbs in terms of lighting capacity (about 3,500 lumen). Using 54Wp solar batteries and 300W wind turbine generators, the LED lighting systems in the Hoa Lac High Tech Park can be used for 20 years.

On April 28, 2010, the Saigon High Tech Park in Ho Chi Minh City put into use 28 lamp posts using wind and solar power on Nguyen Hue road. These lamp posts use 160W LED bulbs, which have equivalent lighting capacity to 400W bulbs that are being used commonly in Vietnam.

Domestic manufacturers’ weakness

A report of the VEEPL project shows that Vietnam is using about 60 million incandescent bulbs, 80 million fluorescent tubes, about 40 million CFLs and more than 600,000 street lighting systems. These data show the great potential of the domestic lighting equipment market. The Electricity of Vietnam Group (EVN) said that in 2008 public lighting systems throughout the country consumed about 16.47 billion kWh of electricity or 25.2 percent of the total amount of electricity consumption nationwide.

The Vietnamese Government and the concerned organizations pay much attention to encouraging and promoting the use of the LED technology. LED technology research centers in Vietnam include the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, the Saigon High Tech Park, and companies such as Dien Quang, Rang Dong and Philips.

LED lights are used widely for indoor and outdoor decoration purposes, especially in restaurants, hotels and festivals

However, experts said that Vietnam is still in the initial period of researching and manufacturing some types of LED lights but does not yet have any technology to produce LED lighting sources. Some manufacturers have begun to sell their products but those products are of low quality and low capacity, which cannot be considered as energy efficient products.

The penetration of Chinese lighting products, including LED lights, into the Vietnamese market makes it difficult for domestic manufacturers to sell their products. Moreover, due to the lack of the LED technology, which includes the technology to manufacture LED chips, the technology to manufacture LED power sources and the LED packaging technology, domestic manufacturers have to import almost everything related to the LED technology. Therefore the domestic manufacturing cost is high and domestic products can hardly compete on price with Chinese products.

Due to obstacles such as the lack of knowledge of LED technology, high manufacturing cost and especially limited consultancy for consumers, the Vietnamese LED lighting market remains underdeveloped.

In the opinion of researchers, Vietnam must take action to eliminate the obstacles that hinder it from making a shift from using traditional lighting products to using LED lighting products. More than ever, Vietnam must intensify human resource training, technology research and especially propaganda activities aiming at improving consumers’ awareness of the benefits of using LED lighting products.

Despite many obstacles, it is believed that in the near future LED lights will be used widely for lighting purposes in Vietnam. This is an effort to realize energy conservation and environmental protection objectives.