Identification of principal design features to develop environmental friendly light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs

Light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs have the potential to reduce energy consumptions due to high energy efficiency but to increase resource consumptions due to high contents of rare and precious resources. Because technology development for LED bulbs is still in the beginning stage of the product life cycle, LED bulbs need to be further developed. Thus, this study analyzes and identifies principal design features to effectively develop more environmentally-friendly LED bulbs with low energy consumption and long lifetime. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to measure the cost efficiencies for energy reduction and technical efficiencies for durability of LED bulbs, and statistical regression analysis is used to identify the principal design features affecting the cost and technical efficiencies. The results of this study shows that the cost and technical efficiencies of the LED bulbs are, on average, 57 and 64%, respectively, implying that many LED bulbs should be improved. Design for environment (DfE) for LED bulbs need to be focused on the principal design features, i.e., luminous flux for energy reduction; and power and power factor for durability. This study can provide valuable information to manufacturers to develop more environmentally-friendly LED bulbs.