Su Yaokang: Review and Development Trends of the Shanghai Lighting Industry

Shanghai is the birthplace and origin of China's lighting industry

1880s (May of the Guangxu reign, Qing Dynasty)

European and American lighting merchants began to enter Shanghai one after another, until in 1917 General Electric of the United States established the General Electric Andeson Electrical Co., Ltd. in Shanghai, engaged in the manufacture of incandescent lamps.

1921

Chinese industrialist Hu Xiyuan and two other engineers jointly developed the first domestically produced long-filament incandescent lamp. On April 1, 1923, together with shareholders Zhang Xueliang and Du Yuesheng, he founded the China Yapoor Light Bulb Factory (the predecessor of the later Shanghai Yaming "Ya" brand light bulbs).

1929

Huade Electric Light Co., Ltd. was established, manufacturing neon lamps and incandescent lamps. In the same year, GE, OSRAM, Philips (now Signify), and Tungsram jointly established Zhonghe Light Bulb Company in Shanghai, with an annual production of 6 million light bulbs, capturing the majority of the national electric lighting market. Until the liberation, there were about thirty large and small lighting companies.

After Liberation

Shanghai's light bulb industry rapidly resumed production, and after joint public-private ownership, formed four major backbone light bulb enterprises: Shanghai Light Bulb Factory, Shanghai Yaming Light Bulb Factory, Huade Light Bulb Factory, and United Light Bulb Factory.

1959 to 1990

The Shanghai lighting industry has gradually developed into an independent industrial cluster with complete categories, close professional division of labor and collaboration, a well-developed supply chain, and leading domestic technology. It is respectively affiliated with the Shanghai Instrument and Telecommunications Industry Bureau, the Shanghai First Light Industry Bureau, and the Shanghai Second Light Industry Bureau. The industry covers the entire field of lighting materials, components, light sources, electrical appliances, and luminaires, with products spanning niche markets such as general lighting, explosion-proof lighting, film and photography lighting, sports lighting, and road lighting.

1999

Shanghai's lighting industry output reached 1.27 billion, including 120 million light sources and 500,000 luminaires, with export earnings of $33 million. It ranked first nationwide. After 2000, with the restructuring of Shanghai's industry following the principle of "focusing on key areas while letting go of others," industrial enterprises optimized their structures and prioritized development. Local Shanghai lighting companies gradually exited labor-intensive sectors. By 2020, Shanghai's lighting industry output is projected to reach approximately 25 billion, ranking fifth nationwide.

Shanghai is the high ground where China's lighting talent converges, technology leads, and scientific innovation thrives

Fudan University is a prestigious institution that established the earliest Electric light source department in China. It has cultivated a large number of lighting elites in China, who remain active on the front lines of the Chinese lighting industry to this day.

Tongji University is a representative of the application practice of lighting products in China. The implementation of many major lighting projects across the country relies on the dedication of Tongji University's faculty and students, particularly making indelible contributions in fields such as roads, bridges, tunnels, sports venues, and landscape illumination.

Shanghai Modern Design Group (East China Architectural Design & Research Institute) has dozens of affiliated institutes that have applied lighting products to various types of buildings with exceptional mastery. Theater lighting, venue lighting, office lighting, hospital lighting, school lighting, commercial lighting, building lighting, and plaza lighting all reflect the designers' ingenuity. A large number of outstanding lighting designers and industry technology masters have emerged, including Cai Zuquan, Zhang Haicong, Wei Dunshan, Shen Jiping, Yang Gongxia, and Yu Lihua, who are among the distinguished representatives of the older generation of lighting masters. Hao Luoxi, Yuan Qiao, and Yao Mengming are among the outstanding figures of Shanghai's middle generation.

Over the past seventy years, Shanghai's lighting enterprises have filled one domestic gap after another:

Incandescent lamp from 1923;

Fluorescent lamp from 1948;

Fluorescent high-pressure mercury lamps, tungsten halogen lamps, high-power iodine-tungsten lamps, pulsed xenon lamps, hydrogen arc lamps, krypton spectrum lamps, ultra-high-pressure xenon lamps, iodine-filled quartz tungsten filament lamps, ultra-high-pressure mercury lamps from the 1950s and 1960s;

In the 1970s and 1980s, standard lamps for luminous intensity, luminous flux, and optical radiation, as well as cinema projection lamps, dysprosium lamps for stadiums, helium-neon lasers, argon-ion lasers, high-pressure sodium lamps, and metal halide lamps were successively introduced;

In the 1990s, Compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) and infrared lamps (bathroom heater lamps) were launched first;

Entering the 20th century, LED bulbs, LED street lights, LED fluorescent lamps, and LED high-bay lights were introduced one after another;

China's first smart streetlight, launched in Shanghai in 2013, won the Silver Award at the Industrial Fair.

For seventy years, Shanghai's lighting-related organizations have contributed one classic lighting case after another:

Lighting for the venues of the 11th Asian Games in 1990;

Nightscape / Landscape lighting for the Tiananmen Gate Tower and the Badaling Great Wall in 1990;

2008 Beijing National Aquatics Center (Water Cube) facade lighting;

2008 Beijing National Stadium (Bird's Nest), Wukesong Arena;

Lighting landscape design for the China Pavilion, Theme Pavilion, and United Nations Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo;

China National Exhibition Center in 2015;

Shanghai Tower in 2016;

2017 Shanghai Dance Center;

Shanghai 80,000-Person Stadium, Shanghai Bund landscape lighting products;

Functional and landscape lighting of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge in 2017;

The Shanghai SIPG Football Stadium, soon to be inaugurated.

The above lighting cases were designed and constructed by Tongji University, Shanghai Yaming, Philips（照明业务：Signify 昕诺飞）, Shanghai Guangmaoda, Shanghai Sansi, Musco, Mingkai, and other Shanghai lighting-related entities.

The market share of lighting poles in China's high-end market reaches 30%, especially in the combined pole construction projects in Shanghai.

Over the past seventy years, Shanghai's academies of sciences, universities, and enterprises have won one technological innovation honor after another:

National Technology Invention Award, Technological Progress Award; Shanghai Science and Technology Invention Awards and Technological Progress Awards are numerous, yielding abundant achievements.

Shanghai is one of the gathering places for large-scale lighting enterprises and famous brands in China

Asia-Pacific Headquarters of International Brands: Philips (now Signify), OSRAM, Cree, Samsung, Seoul Semiconductor, Masco, Iguini, etc.

Upstream semiconductor packaging and driver chips: CDH, ASE, BPSemi, etc.

Testing: Era of Light, Zhongren Shangdong, Shanghai Institute of Process Automation Instrumentation;

Midstream and downstream smart applications: Yaming, Sylvania, Sansi, Mingkai, Philips（照明业务：Signify 昕诺飞）, OSRAM, OPPLE, Xinlong, Huarong, Masco, Leilei; Grand Canyon, etc.

Light Pole: Valmont, Amber, etc.

Control and Drivers: Lutron; Tridonic; Busch-Jaeger, Guanglian, etc.

At the same time, many Grade A dual-certified enterprises were born in Shanghai and are rooted in Shanghai. Examples include lighting engineering companies such as Luoman, Xinju, Laiyiting, Lingluren, and Linlong.

There are also many lighting design companies working hard in Shanghai, such as: Shanghai Institute, Environmental Institute, Tongji Institute, Municipal Institute, Landscape Institute, Mai Suo, Tongyin, etc.

Development Trends in Shanghai's Lighting Industry

Shanghai is an important region for the development of China's lighting industry. Although Shanghai's lighting industry accounts for only 5% of China's total lighting production output value, it still holds a pivotal position.

Shanghai's lighting companies leverage their brand, talent, and regional advantages (leading position in the Yangtze River Delta) to conduct numerous trials and explorations in lighting R&D, product technology innovation, new technology application, capital resource integration, and cross-industry collaboration, contributing their due strength to the development of China's lighting industry.

From 2018 to 2020, the China International Import Expo was held in Shanghai for three consecutive years. General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed elevating the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region to a national strategy. Seizing the opportunity of the 30th anniversary of Pudong's reform and opening-up, he further emphasized that Shanghai must unswervingly comprehensively expand reform and opening-up, build a new highland of high-level opening-up, and promote the dual circulation of domestic and international economic development.

Therefore, the development of Shanghai's lighting industry mainly focuses on technological innovation as the key driver; it pursues the demonstration of new technology applications and high light quality lighting environments; and aims to shape the value of lighting use by building the lighting supply chain.

The lighting industry in Shanghai shows the following trends:

1. Industry Layout:

1) Using Shanghai as a trade hub to radiate across the Yangtze River Delta and throughout China, while establishing an overseas marketing center for the enterprise.

For example: Philips (now Signify), OSRAM, Yaming, Sansi, Huarong, etc.

2) Establish a research and development center and a technological innovation center based in Shanghai, creating a high ground for corporate technology that radiates to the Yangtze River Delta region and even nationwide.

For example: OPPLE, Yaming, Leilei, Sansi, Huarong, etc.

3) Production and manufacturing are relocated to the hinterland of the Yangtze River Delta, fostering industry interaction.

For example: OPPLE, Philips (now Signify) , Yaming, Huarong, Leilei, etc.

2. Industry Orientation:

Upstream semiconductor chip and packaging enterprises, such as Sanan Optoelectronics, Changelight, HC Semitek,兆Chi, and Dinghui Technology, are developing towards high light density chip packaging and improving product process life mainly based on silicon-based flip-chip technology. At the same time, they are deeply developing in the LED application fields of ultra-short wave UV for photocuring and medical UV sterilization. During this COVID-19 pandemic, deep UV sterilization products developed by many companies have been applied: Zhihui Lighting and Dinghui Technology's deep UV mobile disinfection products became hot-selling online !

3. Technological Innovation:

Focusing on new technologies, new materials, and smart lighting as the main R&D directions; continuously innovating applications to set exemplary models.

1) Under the guidance of industry associations such as the Shanghai Lighting Electrical Industry Association, Shanghai Illuminating Engineering Society, Shanghai Optoelectronics Industry Association, and Pudong Smart Lighting Federation, cross-sector integration further realizes the smart lighting and intelligent lighting supply chain, enhancing lighting technology, innovation capabilities, and application capabilities. For example:

a. Midstream Packaging Companies:

Dinghui Technology develops high-luminous-density LED, full-spectrum chips, and flip-chip high-performance integrated light source modules up to 600 watts, providing material preparation for visual safety and high-performance light distribution.

BPS provides solutions for LED lighting driver chips, with virtual IDM simulation and mixed-signal chips as its core technology.

b. Midstream and downstream intelligent application enterprises:

in the R&D and application of new technologies and products such as smart streetlights, whole-home intelligence, and building automation.

2) Use technical standards as a means to lead industry technology trends.

a. The compilation and formulation of standards such as the National Standard (mandatory / recommended) "Technical Requirements for LED Nightscape / Landscape Lighting Applications", Shanghai local standards and association standards "Urban Landscape Lighting Specifications", "Grading and Evaluation Standard for Lighting Quality in Primary and Secondary School Classrooms", and "Grading and Evaluation Standard for LED Reading and Writing Task Lamps" have brought more technologically advanced urban Smart lighting products and application specifications to the lighting industry.

b. Led by Fudan University and Tongji University, we conduct in-depth research on UV germicidal lighting and human-centric healthy lighting to create high-quality light environments centered on human visual comfort. We are committed to improving and optimizing lighting quality in built environments, allowing users to experience and enjoy the highest achievements in lighting applications.

c. Supported by technology, create a lighting environment atmosphere that is comfortable, pleasant, entertaining, healthy, and intelligent.

For example: Smart streetlights approach from two directions:

At the city level, Shanghai formulated the "Technical Requirements for Comprehensive Road Poles in Shanghai" to first address the infrastructure construction of combined poles, set aside disputes, buy time to create space, reserve interfaces for intelligent modules, and await technical integration by various operation platforms.

Over 30 billion yuan has been cumulatively invested in construction in 2018, 2019, and 2020, with 40% of the existing stock still awaiting development.

At the campus level, road infrastructure is built directly by individual property owners based on their financial capacity and needs, including partial or full deployment of smart hardware and operation systems. Currently, six pole manufacturers and eleven luminaire manufacturers have been shortlisted as qualified suppliers.

4. Nightscape / Landscape lighting creates a visual feast for international metropolises, fostering a peaceful, happy, and joyful light atmosphere, by establishing "Urban Landscape Lighting Standards". It redefines urban functions, designating display zones, buffer zones, and prohibited zones.

Taking the 45-kilometer stretch along both banks of the Huangpu River and the 23-kilometer stretch along both banks of the Suzhou Creek as the main urban landscape tour routes, we will progressively implement the city's nightscape lighting layout. Meanwhile, lighting installations will be set up in key high-traffic areas such as the Bund on both sides of the Huangpu River core zone, Lujiazui in Pudong, Wujiaochang in Yangpu, Century Park, Gucun Park, and Xintiandi, featuring light shows to enhance visual impact and观赏力. The project will reach its climax in July 2021.

5. Select key functional areas in cities to improve light environment quality and create a comfortable, healthy light environment. Over three years, focus on selected key hospitals and primary/secondary school classrooms, use smart lighting as a breakthrough, adopt a people-centric approach, improve functional lighting quality, and enhance the light quality of lighting. Invest hundreds of millions annually.

6. Fully integrate IoT and Internet technologies to enhance the added value of lighting products, providing more convenient, comfortable, flexible, and healthy refined lighting management and visual experience.

This is the overall development trend and direction of the lighting industry in Shanghai.

Led by technology and aimed at improving the light environment, we provide optimal lighting solutions and products.

Shanghai Lighting Electrical Industry Association