Über-efficient Philips LED wins $10m US L Prize

A light-emitting diode (LED) bulb designed to replace the standard — and energy-inefficient — 60-watt incandescent light bulb from Philips Lighting North America has won a lighting innovation L Prize from the US Department of Energy (DOE).

The Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize, as the award is otherwise known, was created to challenge the lighting industry to develop high performance, energy-saving replacements for conventional light bulbs.

To win the prize, the LED bulb from Philips — first submitted to the DOE in 2009 — had to successfully complete 18 months of field, lab and product testing to ensure that its performance, quality, lifetime, cost and availability will meet expectations for widespread adoption and mass manufacturing.

According to the DOE, if every 60-watt incandescent bulb in the US.was 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 would avoid 20 million metric tons of carbon emissions.

“We looked at the L Prize challenge as an opportunity to innovate and develop an energy-efficient alternative to a product that has remained largely unchanged for over a century,” said Zia Eftekhar, CEO of Philips Lighting North America.

Launched in 2008, the 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.

The Philips L Prize-winning bulb was required to have a useful lifetime of more than 25,000 hours, compared with 1,000 to 3,000 hours for standard incandescents. As the winner, Philips will receive a $10 million cash prize as well as L Prize partner promotions and incentives. To date, 31 utilities and energy efficiency program partners stand ready to promote and develop markets for the prize-winning light bulb. The new LED from Philips could arrive in stores as soon as early 2012.