Following is a text version of Jim Brodrick's opening presentation video from the July 2010 DOE SSL Market Introduction Workshop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Narrator: The evolution of lighting has taken society from open flame … to the incandescent bulb … to fluorescents and other lighting technologies. Now, a revolution in Solid-State Lighting—a technology developing at a phenomenal rate—promises unprecedented levels of efficiency at a time when many face increasing pressure to reduce energy use and costs.

Kevin Dowling: If you look at lighting alone, on the residential side, it's maybe 10 to 15% of our electrical energy use. On the commercial side, especially retail, it can be much higher, 40-50%, but on the whole it's about 22% of all electrical use in the country. If we can take that and reduce that fraction by 50%, which is easily done using LED technology, then we've addressed a huge segment of the problem.

Narrator: The market for Solid-State Lighting is developing as rapidly as the technology itself, with increasing demand and an explosion of products spanning nearly all lighting applications. Federally mandated lighting standards will soon end the era of incandescents, forcing consumers into this confusing marketplace, where product quality varies.

Mark McClear: ...Some of the exaggerated performance claims that we've seen, some of the poor quality products that we've seen coming in, not only from offshore but U.S. manufacturers can make some pretty impressively poor stuff too.

Narrator: The result of all these products and claims? Doubt has been cast on the readiness of SSL technology as a whole.

Christopher Ruud: In every workshop, every talk, every educational seminar, where more and more people are learning about the technology, that's one of the things, to give them a comfort level that LED technology is ready for a mainstream marketplace.

Narrator: DOE and its partners face the challenge of creating reliable methods for evaluating these products, helping buyers to sort through volumes of dense, contradictory information.

Jim Brodrick: We're working with utilities and energy efficiency agencies, we're working with a lot of the major trade associations and it's getting the customer educated on what white light LED lighting is and what they can expect so that they make en educated, smart purchase. We don't want them to buy something that they're going to be unhappy with about six months later.

Mark McClear: The work that the DOE is doing provides the guardrails to prevent the problem that we saw with CFL and make Solid-State Lighting work the first time out of the gate.

Narrator: To make it work, any assessment of Solid-State Lighting products should take into account a number of factors.

Christopher Ruud: Independent photometric testing
Jim Brodrick: An LM-79 test
Kevin Dowling: Color rendering
Mark McClear: An LM-80 report on the LEDs
Kevin Dowling: Color temperature
Christopher Ruud: How the thermals are managed
Mark McClear: Delivered lumens and lumens per watt
Kevin Dowling: Consistency, which is binning
Jim Brodrick: A warranty
Mark McClear: Whose LEDs are they?

Narrator: You are here. Technology is headed on a steep upward arc, education needs to follow this same arc. An excellent reason why you are here.