Japanese LED Industry Policy "21st Century Light Plan"

With the strong support of the Japanese government, the LED lighting industry has grown rapidly. LED lighting has accounted for 0.8% of Japan's lighting market in 2008. It is expected to reach 8% in 2015 and 25% in 2020. Nichia, ToyodaGosei and other leading global LED companies have emerged. The Japanese government has played a very important role in promoting the development of the LED industry. As early as 12 years ago, Japan has begun to implement the “21st Century Light Plan” that promotes the development and industrialization of semiconductor lighting technology. It is one of the first countries in the world to initiate LED industry policy. This article focuses on exploring the "21st Century Light Plan", Japan's most important LED industry policy, analyzing the development priorities of the two implementation phases before and after the plan, and summing up its enlightenment for the development of LED industry in Guangdong.

First, the first stage to promote technology research and development (1998-2002)

Authorize the authority organization to promote the implementation of the plan. Japan’s “21st Century Light Project” (Development of High-Efficiency Photoelectric Conversion Compound Semiconductors) was provided by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (formerly the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, METI) for the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO, The New Energy and Industrial Technology DevElopment Organization) in March 1998. The funding was specifically implemented by NEDO and the Japan Metal Research and Development Center (JRCM, TheJapanResearchAndDevelopmentCenterForMetals). The R&D work was carried out by the Japan Electric Lamp Manufacturing Association in cooperation with 4 universities and 13 companies.

Judging from the situation at the time, Japan's active implementation of the "21st Century Light Plan" is mainly due to three considerations: First, for energy conservation, excellent energy-saving effects of LED products can save Japan a lot of energy, which is the most important reason. The second is to reduce emissions, once the popularity of LED lighting, will reduce 3.4 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, no doubt added a boost to the Kyoto Protocol carbon emissions. Third, for the sake of industry leadership, the Japanese government will focus on cultivating the international competitiveness of the local LED industry and maintain the leading position of Japanese LED technology led by Nichia Chemical, Toyota Synthesis and other companies.

The first phase of the plan focuses on promoting technology research and development. The first phase of the "21st Century Light Plan" emphasizes the basic research of LED technology. In 1998-2002, the Japanese government invested JPY 5 billion in the development of white light semiconductor lighting LEDs and new semiconductor materials, substrates, phosphors, and lighting fixtures (see Table 1). In 2005, it produced the ability to replace incandescent and fluorescent lamps. The first generation of general lighting LED light source. Japan has already achieved the first phase of the “21st Century Light Plan”.

The completion of the first phase of the goal has largely contributed to the success of a group of leading LED companies in Japan. They have broken through a number of industry key and common technologies in the fields of GaN blue and green LEDs and established patents worldwide. This has formed Japan’s leading international advantage in the LED industry since the beginning of this century. For example, the world-famous Japanese companies that mastered the production and manufacturing technologies for epitaxial wafers such as polysilicon, silicon single crystals, and silicon wafers are the two companies, Shin-Etsu and Mitsubishi (which together with the other two German companies MEMC and Wacker control 70 percent of the world's silicon Epitaxial wafer market); Japanese companies that master GaAS substrate manufacturing technology include Hitachi Cable, Sumitomo Electric, Mitsubishi Chemicals, Shin-Etsu, etc.; Sumitomo Electric is the master of organic metal technology; Nenoto is the company that masters phosphor-related technologies. Optonix, etc.; Japanese companies that have mastered MOVCD equipment (commonly known as epitaxial furnace) manufacturing technologies include Nichia Chemical, Toyoda Gosei, and Sanso.

Second, the second phase to build and nurture demand markets (2003-2010)

The "21st Century Light Plan" is an important measure for Japan to implement a technology-leading development strategy in the LED field at the beginning of this century. The plan hopes that through the continuous breakthrough of technology, it will be possible to replace 50% of traditional lighting with white LED lighting in 2006 and reduce the national energy consumption target by about 10%. In fact, LED lighting accounted for only 0.8% of Japan's lighting market in 2008, which is related to the fact that LED price declines have not reached the expected level and the lag in market adoption and application. To this end, the Japanese government adjusted the focus of the implementation of the second phase of the “21st Century Light Plan”, shifting from the first phase of promoting technology research and development to the second phase of construction and training demand markets. The technical problems are more dominated by industry and industry alliances. The direct financial investment of the government is gradually decreasing. The government hopes to open up the difficulties by nurturing the market and strengthening the promotion and application. Therefore, during the implementation of the second phase of the plan, the Japanese government has actively taken steps to promote the establishment of LED standards, tax incentive LED product promotion and application to expand the LED lighting market.

(I) Promoting the establishment of LED standards At present, the global LED industry standard has not yet been established. Although the International Standards Association has established the CIE-127 standard, it is also limited to some measurement standards. The reason is mainly that LED applications are widely used, and individual fields require great differences in product characteristics, and the lack of leading standards for leading companies is also an important factor. To this end, the Japanese government and manufacturers are very active in seizing the global advantage through the establishment of standards. In the past few years, under the organization of the Japanese government, the Japanese semiconductor lighting industry cooperated with the Japan Electric Lamp Manufacturing Association to standardize the style and measurement of LED products. Recently, more than 72 LED related companies in Japan have established LED lighting promotion associations. The standard integration and formulation, hope to reduce transaction costs between buyers and sellers through industry standards, thereby increasing Japanese manufacturers global competitive advantage. The major LED standards introduced in Japan include the formulation and improvement of the "General Principles of White LED Light Metering for Lighting." The Japanese Society of Illumination (JIES), Japan Lighting Committee (JCIE), Japan Lighting Industry Association (JIL), and Japan Electron Sphere Industry Association (JEL) established the common standard "General Principles of White LED Light Metering for Lighting" in 2004, becoming At present, the only measurement standard for white LEDs used in lighting has been the first to formulate several unconformed items such as the manufacture of standard LEDs, measurement methods for light intensity of small modules, and life assessment methods. Subsequently, four Japanese groups published a revised version of this standard in March 2006, adding and revising the original standard content, and made more detailed specifications on colorimetric measurement and luminous flux measurement methods. Overall, the standard's description is very detailed. It can be said that it is the most complete specification of the LED standard literature that can be found in the international stage at this stage. In the current situation where the industry still lacks a suitable general LED measurement specification, this standard will be an important reference.

The "Electrical Appliance Safety Law" was redrafted to regulate product attributes including LED products. In May 2010, Japan re-enacted the “Electrical Appliance Safety Law” to explicitly regulate the power supply, voltage, and fixed frequency of electronic light-emitting devices (LEDs, OLED lighting devices). The relevant official provisions are expected to be released before the first quarter of 2011 and will be implemented as soon as July 2011. However, for LED lighting fixtures, the current specification object includes only electric spherical lighting, that is, lamp-type lighting is outside the specification object. Although the "Electrical Appliance Safety Act" does not include lamp-type LED lighting, the Japanese government still hopes that companies can restrict themselves according to performance and safety, and form a "industry specification" that is not expressly prescribed.

(B) tax incentives LED products to promote the use of tax relief to encourage the procurement of LED products. In December 2005, Japan introduced the Promotion Tax Law to improve and improve the use of energy. It clearly stipulates that companies or institutions using LED lighting devices to replace incandescent lighting devices during 2006-2007 can obtain over 130% of the investment amount, or 7% of the investment amount. The tax rate reduction, in order to narrow the purchase cost difference between LED and traditional lighting devices, increase the enthusiasm of enterprises to use LED lighting, and expand the domestic LED lighting demand in Japan.

LED products are included in the "Eco-Point" energy-saving appliances subsidy program. To cope with the international financial crisis and stimulate demand in the domestic consumer market, in May 2009, the Japanese government began to implement the "Eco-Point" system of energy-saving appliance subsidies program, the implementation deadline for the end of 2010. The so-called Eco-Point system is mainly to reduce the cost equivalent to 5% of the product price to “consumers” in the way that the country bears the burden. At that time, consumers can use the accumulated points to exchange other products. LED lighting products have become the second batch of product subsidies granted after thin televisions, refrigerators, and air conditioners. At present, since the implementation of the Eco-Point system, the sales of related products have led to a significant growth, in which the share of LED lighting in Japan has rapidly increased from less than 1% in 2009 to 10% in February 2010, effectively playing a sustained role. Boost Japan's consumption and support the economic recovery.

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