17 August 2011

LUXEON Rebel LEDs power L Prize winning retrofit bulb

Earlier this month, Philips Lighting North America announced that it had won the 60-watt replacement bulb category of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize (L Prize) competition, which challenges the lighting industry to develop high performance, energy-saving replacements for conventional light bulbs. Replacing every 60-watt incandescent bulb in the U.S. with the 10-watt L Prize winner would save about 35 terawatt-hours of electricity ($3.9bn) a year and avoid 20 million metric tons of carbon emissions, it is reckoned.

Established in 2008, the L Prize competition targets the 60-watt bulb because it is widely used by consumers, and represents around 50% of the domestic incandescent light bulb market.

The DOE's requirements for the L Prize include:

• Efficacy of more than 90 lumens per watt, which exceeds the efficiency of all incandescent and most compact fluorescent sources today, which range from 10 to 60 lumens per watt

• Energy consumption of less than 10W as compared to a 60W incandescent

• Output of more than 900 lumens, equivalent to a 60W incandescent light bulb

• A lifetime of more than 25,000 hours, which is 25 times greater than a typical incandescent bulb

• A Color Rendering Index (CRI) greater than 90, which is a high measure of lighting quality

• A color temperature between 2700 and 3000 Kelvin, which is "warm" white light, comparable to that of incandescent sources.

“The L Prize challenges the best and brightest minds in the U.S. lighting industry to make the technological leaps forward that can greatly reduce the money we spend to light our homes and businesses each year,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “Not only does the L Prize challenge innovative companies like Philips to make LED technology even more energy efficient, it also spurs the lighting industry to make LEDs affordable for American families.”

Submitted in 2009, the Philips LED bulb successfully completed 18 months of field, lab, and product testing to meet the rigorous requirements of the L Prize competition.

Philips Lumileds (a subsidiary of Philips) of San Jose, CA, USA says that its LUXEON Rebel LEDs are at the heart of the winning L Prize bulb, as well as dozens of different retrofit bulbs being sold around the world.

“Our success with the L Prize is tangible proof of superior performance under real-world operating conditions”, said Steve Barlow, Sr. VP Sales and Marketing. “LUXEON has quickly become the LED of choice when quality, efficiency, reliability, and performance, are essential to our customers’ retrofit bulb requirements”.

Lumileds’ Illumination Grade LEDs offer a wide range of options that address quality of light, efficiency, light output specifications, and cost concerns, says the firm. Each bulb format, from the small candelabra bulbs to larger PAR lamps, can be easily and directly addressed with the portfolio.

Tags: LUXEON Rebel LEDs 60-watt retrofit bulbs

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