Will Liquid Cooling Take Off In The Lighting Industry?

Liquid cooling is taking off as a critical thermal management technology for the booming AI data center industry. Liquid cooling protects AI servers from damaging heat, and also reduces energy consumption for cooling AI data centers.

Can liquid cooling help with LED luminaire thermal management? In the early days of LED technology, LEDs were inefficient and generated a lot of heat. Some of the earliest LED lamp manufacturers implemented liquid cooling. These included Switch and Ledzworld. Neither of these companies are around today. As LED’s became dramatically more efficient, liquid cooling was replaced with simpler aluminum heat sinks.

Now that LED luminaires are attempting much higher wattages, higher light outputs, and more intense point sources for optical control, there are new efforts to apply liquid cooling to luminaires:

Oreon: This company produces water-cooled LED grow lights for greenhouses and growing areas. Their technology offers benefits such as better temperature control and compact fixture size. See image above. More information here.

GEW UV: This company manufactures water-cooled UV LED systems for industrial applications, particularly in printing and packaging industries. See image below. More information here.

These companies demonstrate that liquid-cooled LED technology is being used and developed across specialty sectors, today, including horticulture and industrial applications. Are you aware of liquid cooling applied to general lighting luminaires? Let me know by emailing me at david@lightingsold.com .

Top Image: Water-cooled Embrace horticultural luminaire by Oreon. www.oreon-led.com

Image: GEW UV’s water-cooled UV LED curing system for the printing industry. www.gewuv.com

David Shiller

David Shiller is the Publisher of LightNOW, and Senior Business Development Consultant at Capacity Consulting, a North American consulting firm providing business development services to advanced lighting manufacturers. The ALA awarded David the Pillar of the Industry Award. David has been co-chair of the ALA’s Engineering Committee since 2010. David established MaxLite’s OEM component sales into a multi-million dollar division. He invented GU24 lamps while leading ENERGY STAR lighting programs for the US EPA. David has been published in leading lighting publications, including LD+A, enLIGHTenment Magazine, LEDs Magazine, and more.

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