The New York Stat's Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) announced new funding for 11 firms to help increase the energy efficiency of buildings. One of these companies is OLEDWorks, that received $500,000 to work on brighter OLED lighting panels.
This is OLEDWorks third NYSERDA grant. In June 2013 the company was awarded $200,000 (in collaboration with WAC Lighting) to develop lighting for office space, combining LED indirect ambient device with an OLED "task unit", and in November 2013 OLEDWorks received $491,000 to improve the capability and control of its OLED manufacturing processes in order to manufacturing robust products at affordable cost.
Two months ago OLEDWorks announced that it plans to increase capacity in its OLED lighting fab in Rochester, NY, in a $73.6 million investment. In April 2015 OLEDWorks announced it will acquire the key parts of Philips OLED lighting business, including the OLED lighting production fab in Aachen, Germany.
OLEDWorks, established in July 2010 by former Kodak OLED business experts, is a US-based OLED lighting maker (the only OLED lighting producer in the US, actually). The company developed a proprietary low-cost production process.In 2013 the company successfully completed its Series A fund raising, and the company received three DoE grants (see here, here and here) to further develop is OLED technology.
In July 2014, Acuity Brands unveiled new use cases for its Marker OLED luminaire, which uses Amber OLED panels made by OLEDWorks. The Amber OLED panel emits light at a 590 nm peak, and has a fixed luminance of 600 cd/m2. Those OLEDs are free of blue wavelengths - which disrupt circadian rhythms. Acuity Brands says these features makes it ideal for night lighting in healthcare applications.
Brighter OLED are needed for HDR.