Philips (NYSE: PHG), which invented the compact fluorescent bulb, won a Department of Energy (DOE ) L Prize for its continued innovations in lighting.
The company produced a 10-watt LED bulb that can replace the standard 60-watt light bulb.
DOE’s L Prize challenged the solid state lighting industry to develop high performance replacements for conventional light bulbs.
Solid-state lighting technology uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) instead of electrical filaments, plasma, or gas, and has the potential to use far less energy than other lighting technologies.
DOE targeted the 60-watt bulb for replacement because it’s one of the most widely used light bulbs, representing roughly half the domestic incandescent market.
If every 60-watt incandescent bulb in the US was replaced with the Philips 10-watt L Prize winner, the nation would save about 35 terawatt-hours of electricity, or $3.9 billion in one year, while avoiding 20 million metric tons of carbon emissions.
Philips started selling a slightly different version of the 60-watt replacement bulb at Home Depot last year. It uses 12 watts to provide 806 lumens of brightness.
To win the L Prize, Philips squeezed even more performance out of the bulb. The version submitted to DOE in 2009 uses just under 10 watts of electricity (9.7 to be exact) and is even brighter, with 910 lumens.
Both bulbs last 25,000 hours, compared to 1,000-3,000 hours for typical incandescent bulbs.
Philips expects the price of LEDs to drop from $40 today to about $10 in five to six years, when the market will really take off.
Pike Research estimates that high efficiency LED and fluorescent lighting will make up more than 75% of the market by 2020.
As the L-Prize winner, Philips will receive a $10 million cash prize as well as L Prize partner promotions and incentives.
Loading...
This is all exciting stuff
– the more lighting choice, the better.
RE “Philips expects the price of LEDs to drop from $40 today to about $10 in five to six years, when the market will really take off.”
This mirrors what others say about LEDs too (a marked price reduction as indeed has happened with CFLs, even discounting subsidies)
OK,
so why ban simple incandescent alternatives in that case, which of course have advantages too?
Presumably people will soon WANT to buy all these wonderful affordable new bulbs then – without coercion?
Ergo
1. People prefer new bulbs = why ban old bulbs, little savings from a ban, and the old bulbs still have advantages in some situations
(compare radio tubes and transistors, tubes were bought less anyway, but are still useful in some situations – any guitarists out there ?!)
2. People still prefer old bulbs = rather odd to ban them then, as well!
(and it is a ban, halogen type incandescents will be banned too before 2020 on the Energy Act 45 lumen per Watt specification, and anyway have different light quality as well as much greater expense for marginal savings)
Unfortunately,
the supposed switchover savings are not there anyway, either for society (less than 1% US energy usage, 1-2% grid electricity)
or for consumers, based on DOE ‘s own statistics – ceolas.net/#li171x
There are as seen much more relevant ways to save energy,
in electricity generation, grid distribution, and real consumption waste, than from telling people what light bulbs they can use.