Washington, DC--The first product to win the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) L Prize (http://www.lightingprize.org/) competition will hit retail shelves across the country on Earth Day, April 22, 2012. The L Prize-winning product is a light-emitting diode (LED) lamp from Philips Lighting North America that illuminates like a 60W incandescent bulb but uses only one-sixth the energy and has an expected lifetime of more than 25,000 hours.
DOE launched the L Prize in 2008 to spur manufacturers to develop ultra high-quality, high-efficiency LED products to replace the common light bulb. The first L Prize was awarded in the 60W replacement category in August 2011. The product went through a battery of rigorous testing and vetting to ensure it met the competition's high standards for both performance and mass production. The mass-production requirement sets the L Prize competition apart from other technology competitions, because it bridges the chasm between a high-quality prototype and a market-ready product that will save energy.
Replacing the country's estimated 971 million installed 60W A-19 lamps with the L Prize winner would save approximately 35 terawatt-hours of electricity in one year--enough to power the lights of nearly 18 million U.S. households, and equivalent to about $3 billion in annual savings--and avoid 20 million metric tons of carbon emissions. Utilities and energy efficiency organizations, including those who serve as L Prize partners, are already putting into place rebates and incentives for the purchase of the winning lamp in jurisdictions all across the country.
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SOURCE: Jim Brodrick, U.S. DOE Solid-State Lighting program; www.ssl.energy.gov
IMAGE: The L Prize-winning 60W LED bulb from Philips Lighting is targeted to be on store shelves on Earth Day, April 22, 2012. (Courtesy Philips Lighting)