GE LUH150 penning start HPS mercury retrofit lamp

These are a special type of high pressure sodium lamp designed for use on HX/high leakage reactance and choke/reactor high pressure mercury ballasts. They use a penning mix neon/argon gas fill in the discharge tube which has a much lower starting potential than the xenon gas fill in regular HPS lamps, which eliminated the need for an ignitor. The tradeoff is that these lamps are about 15% to 25% less efficient than regular xenon HPS lamps due to the higher thermal conductivity of the neon gas fill increasing plasma thermal losses. Service life is also reduced relative to xenon fill lamps due to faster potential rise during life. However, these are still 30% to 50% more efficient than mercury lamps.

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From what I am aware of, the only true penning start retrofit high pressure sodium lamps intended to replace 1000W H36 mercury vapor lamps are the 880W Sylvania Unalux lamps. Those 880W lamps are specifically designed to only run on 480V series choke ballasts or extremely hard to find 1000W H36 mercury vapor HX autotransformer ballasts. The 940W lamps you were referring to have mostly been made by Iwasaki and a few other Japanese manufacturers. Plus, I think the only 940W retrofit high pressure sodium lamps that are truly designed for use on North American 1000W H36 mercury vapor ballasts are the Iwasaki Sunlux NH940BLC, NH940BCE, and NH940BFCE lamps. One benefit about those lamps is that they are all compatible with CWA ballasts in addition to HX autotransformer ballasts and 480V series choke ballasts. All the other 940W retrofit lamps that I know of would work better on the less common 1000W H34 mercury vapor ballasts of the HX autotransformer type or the series choke type in addition to the common European 1000W mercury vapor series choke ballasts and Japanese 1000W mercury vapor HX autotransformer ballasts and series choke ballasts. The GE lamp in this video appears to be a relabeled Sylvania Unalux lamp. Interestingly, if you visit Japan or research its HID lighting portfolio, you can find a very wide range of HID lamps that are designed as retrofit lamps for mercury vapor ballasts. Those retrofit lamps include standard high pressure sodium lamps, deluxe high pressure sodium lamps, quartz metal halide lamps, and even ceramic metal halide lamps that use internal starting mechanisms ranging from the Iwasaki patented FEC ignitor, glowbottle starter, and the thermal starter. Because all these retrofit lamps are self starting, you can simply upgrade from mercury vapor to these more efficient HID light sources by only needing to replace the lamp in the existing fixture without any rewiring whatsoever. Due to Japan’s heavy usage of these HID retrofit lamps for mercury vapor ballasts, HX autotransformer ballasts and series choke ballasts are very easy to find even in high wattages, plus the 100V 50Hz HX autotransformer ballasts along with older HX autotransformer ballasts containing 110V 60Hz and 110V 50Hz taps should be relatively safe to use on a standard North American 120V 60Hz supply without the real need of an additional transformer.