by Ann Withanee — August 10, 2011—The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that Philips Lighting North America has won the 60-watt replacement bulb category of the Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize (L Prize). The Department of Energy’s L Prize challenged the lighting industry to develop high performance, energy-saving replacements for conventional light bulbs that will save American consumers and businesses money.
Submitted in 2009, the Philips LED bulb successfully completed 18 months of intensive field, lab and product testing to meet the rigorous requirements of the L Prize competition—ensuring that performance, quality, lifetime, cost, and availability meet expectations for widespread adoption and mass manufacturing. If every 60-watt incandescent bulb in the U.S. were replaced with the 10-watt L Prize winner, the nation would save about 35 terawatt-hours of electricity or $3.9 billion in one year, and avoid 20 million metric tons of carbon emissions.
Launched in 2008, the Energy Department’s L Prize competition targets the 60-watt bulb because it is one of the most widely used types of light bulbs by consumers, representing roughly half of the domestic incandescent light bulb market. Innovations in residential and commercial lighting products such as those encouraged by the L Prize expand the lighting choices available to consumers and support the Department’s efforts to reduce our Nation’s energy use, create manufacturing jobs for U.S. workers, and save money for American families and business owners.
The Philips L Prize-winning product was required to have a useful lifetime of more than 25,000 hours, compared with 1,000 to 3,000 hours for the products these highly efficient bulbs are intended to replace. The product uses solid-state lighting (SSL) technology, which utilizes light-emitting diodes (LEDs) instead of electrical filaments, plasma, or gas, and has the potential to use far less energy than other lighting technologies. As the winner, Philips will receive a $10 million cash prize as well as L Prize partner promotions and incentives.
