The Greenwashing Lamps Blog is as said before always worth reading, and is well laid out too.
The "red" post was a fitting tribute to the incandescent bulb, given the 1.9.2012 "final" ban on regular incandescent type bulbs (at least until the 2014 review).
Complementing it, as it were, was the "blue" post, taking up the issues around the greater blue light component of replacement fluorescent and LED lighting, in particular the latter, with the much hyped "white LEDs" that are beginning to proliferate.
Worth looking at, complementing this, Peter Stenzel's light bulb comparison page (translation),
and section on blue light effects (translation), both those pages having plenty of illustrations.
Embedded blue light post below, Greenwashing Lamps source link
Having covered South African and Hong Kong criticism of the ban and of the replacement bulbs, it is worth remembering that there have been similar good articles originating in the EU.
Naturally, most English language articles have a UK source, but some others have appeared that don't need translation tools (or manual work!).
This article by Dutch researchers has been mentioned in a previous post, but deserves its own.
Written in 2010, it remains valid today.
From University of Colorado Professor Roger Pielke Sr Climate Science Site:
Both Professor Roger Pielke Sr and Professor Roger Pielke Jr (blog) are something as unusual as institutional, renowned climate scientists that are not afraid to make their own judgements on climate change.
Note how criticism is otherwise something such scientists tend to do once they leave office!
(and - whatever the rights and wrongs - the notion that "most scientists agree with current climate change policies" should be taken with that knowledge, that few would go against established governmental and institutional opinion anyway, for fear of not receiving continued funding etc)
Henk Tennekes is an aeronautical engineer. From 1965 to 1977 he was a professor of Aerospace Engineering at Penn State. He is co-author of A First Course in Turbulence (MIT Press, 1972 – still in print) and author of The Simple Science of Flight, recently (2009) released revised and expanded.
Joost van Kasteren [website] is a senior writer on technology and science in Holland, having also been a science journal editor.
He covers energy, housing, water management, agriculture, food technology, innovation, science policy, and related issues.
Typically straight-talking Dutchmen, they don't spare the rhetoric as they conclude the article...
In 2006, Dutch legislators caved in under the combined lobbying pressure by Philips and Greenpeace. A parliamentary majority in The Hague embraced the idea of banning incandescent bulbs and ordered the Dutch Environment Minister, Jacqueline Cramer, to lobby for an extension of the ban to all states in the European Union.
That task proved simple enough.
Top politicians in Europe, Germany’s Angela Merkel up front, deeply impressed by Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, were only too eager to project an image of strength and will power concerning imagined threats to the planet. ”Save the Earth, ban the bulb” was an effective campaign strategy.
To make a long story short, it took less than one year to issue a binding European Union Edict ordering the phasing out of incandescent bulbs, starting with a ban on bulbs of 100 watts and more effective March 1, 2009, and leading to a complete ban of all incandescent lighting on September 1, 2012.
The spin doctors at Philips headquarters have got it made.
And if this scam backfires on them in consumer protests all over Europe, they can cover their backsides by claiming that politicians and the green movement are responsible, not they.
Backfire it will. There exist no decent alternatives to incandescent light. None.
The history of the EU ban is extensively covered with documentation and communication copies on the Ceolas site, here: http://ceolas.net/#euban.
Having just considered a South African criticism of what is going on, consider another good article, this time from Hong Kong, again highlighting the problems of fluorescent or LED bulb replacements, as well as the questionable need and legitimacy of the product regulation itself.
It comes from Dr Robert Hanson:
Dr Hanson holds a PhD in the Built Environment from The Bartlett University College London. He worked in the energy industry in England where he was involved in calculating energy prices and setting tariff s under both competitive and nationalized conditions.
Updated July 26 with comparative spectra also for LED replacement bulbs
The team of Stony Brook researchers reviews the findings of their research. Pictured from left to right (standing) are Marcia Simon, Michael Hadjiargyrou, (sitting) Tatsiana Mironava and Miriam Rafailovich. The images displayed on the screen are of keratinocytes via confocal microscopy which show the results of human skin cells with and without exposure to CFL.
As has widely been reported, a recent study highlights the problem of UV radiation from compact fluorescent bulbs, albeit only at close quarters.
It is therefore recommended that the squiggly tubes are enclosed in capsules for such use, as with the pear shaped CFLs that are available.
From the Daily Mail article 20 July Edited extracts, highlights
Energy-saving light bulbs can fry your skin, a new study claims.
Researchers at Stony Brook University in New York State examined the impact of the compact fluorescent bulbs - or CFL bulbs - on human skin cells prompted by a similar study undertaken in Europe.
They discovered that healthy skin exposed to light from the CFLs experienced damage found with ultraviolet (UV) radiation.
'Consumers should be careful when using compact fluorescent light bulbs... our research shows that it is best to avoid using them at close distances and that they are safest when placed behind an additional glass cover' Stony Brook University Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Miriam Rafailovich said.
The scientists tested a number of CFL bulbs from across New York State to determine their UV emissions and the integrity of each bulb’s phosphor coatings.
Results revealed significant levels of UV, which appeared to originate from cracks in the phosphor coatings that were present in all CFL bulbs studied.
They also tested the impact on collagen-producing skin cells and the epidermal cell that generated keratin from the light.
Comparing skin cells exposed to the CFLs with those exposed to incandescent light bulbs, they discovered that only the CFLs damaged skin, the same trauma as sun burnt skin, they found. Incandescent light of the same intensity had no effect on healthy skin cells at all.
Abstract
Compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs can provide the same amount of lumens as incandescent light bulbs, using one quarter of the energy.
Recently, CFL exposure was found to exacerbate existing skin conditions; however, the effects of CFL exposure on healthy skin tissue have not been thoroughly investigated.
In this study, we studied the effects of exposure to CFL illumination on healthy human skin tissue cells (fibroblasts and keratinocytes).
Cells exposed to CFLs exhibited a decrease in the proliferation rate, a significant increase in the production of reactive oxygen species, and a decrease in their ability to contract collagen.
Measurements of UV emissions from these bulbs found significant levels of UVC and UVA (mercury [Hg]
emission lines), which appeared to originate from cracks in the phosphor coatings, present in all bulbs studied.
The response of the cells to the CFLs was consistent with damage from UV radiation, which was further enhanced when low dosages of TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs), normally used for UV absorption, were added prior to exposure.
No effect on cells, with or without TiO2 NPs, was observed when they were exposed to incandescent light of the same intensity.
Scotland based lighting designer Kevan Shaw of Savethebulb.org has a particular interest on the effects of CFLs on people with light sensitivity disorders, as he points out in the introduction to his post on this research, extracts:
As previously blogged I am assisting the Spectrum Alliance with their campaign to retain incandescent lamps for people with specific photosensitive disorders.
In the course of this I have learned a lot about skin problems caused by CFLs. It seems that such problems are not just confined to specifically photosensitive people. The Daily Mail ran an article on 20 July this year following up on recently published research in the USA. It seems that the light from CFLs has a significantly greater damaging effect on skin than incandescent lamps.
As previously experienced, CFLs do emit UV despite the claims of manufacturers.
Double envelope CFLs do reduce UV emissions considerably and should be used in any situation where lamps are at all close to people like task lighting, table lamps and bedside lights, particularly for the very young and very old whose skin tends to be more sensitive.
Kevan Shaw July 20 , 2012
Comment
Some comments elsewhere are taking this quite lightly, even welcoming a bit of sunburn and vitamin D formation.
However, an important point not mentioned is that UVC, one of the UV types emitted, is the most damaging UV source and happens to be blocked by the atmosphere ozone layer when coming from the sun.
An interesting runthrough of UV light can be seen on Digplanet.com, here.
The same source on Fluorescent lamp UV radiation
Fluorescent lamps
Fluorescent lamps produce UV radiation by ionising low-pressure mercury vapour. A phosphorescent coating on the inside of the tubes absorbs the UV and converts it to visible light.
The main mercury emission wavelength is in the UVC range. Unshielded exposure of the skin or eyes to mercury arc lamps that do not have a conversion phosphor is quite dangerous.
The light from a mercury lamp is predominantly at discrete wavelengths. Other practical UV sources with more continuous emission spectra include xenon arc lamps (commonly used as sunlight simulators), deuterium arc lamps, mercury-xenon arc lamps, metal-halide arc lamps, and tungsten-halogen incandescent lamps.
Incandescents have a red shift and relatively low UV output
The sourced Olympusmicro.com site for the last diagram has a good account of lamp technologies and spectra.
Notice how the today's much-hyped LED replacement bulbs ("white LEDs") also have light quality issues, irregular spectrum with blue peaking.. (from http://www.luminousdiy.com/):
As for the issue at hand here,
there is more coverage of UV radiation and other health concerns, with research references and information on related skin and other disorders, on http://ceolas.net/#li18rx
Note that the double envelope CFL recommendation dates back several years from other studies...
Being too close to energy-saving light bulbs could cause skin reddening because of ultraviolet light emissions, health experts have warned.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) cautions against being closer than 30cm (1ft) to some compact fluorescent (cfl) bulbs for long.
As a result of testing which revealed the potentially high levels of UV light, the HPA has issued guidelines against people using unencapsulated light bulbs - where the light coil is visible - closer than 30cms to the body for more than one hour a day.
Professor Harry Moseley, Consultant Clinical Scientist at the University of Dundee, said: "We are concerned about risks to patients who have severe light-sensitive skin disorders.
"The small levels of ultra-violet emitted by some low energy light bulbs could be harmful to these patients. I recommend use of lights with a protective shield to absorb the UV."
Experts stress that healthy people are at no risk providing the HPAs advice (above) is followed.
Also a similar EU Commission study 2008, albeit a typically poorly written EU report, seemingly drawing on other studies, and full of conclusions without presenting underlying data evidence (surprise, not).
In December 2009 The Canadian Federal Government Health Department finished a review of CFLs, again mainly relating to UV radiation, but other electromagnetic radiation was also studied.
The report mirrored the UK HPA findings:
"It is recommended that single envelope CFLs [classic tubular type lights] not be used at distances less than 30 cm to avoid any long-term health effects in the general population"
Note a certain irony here...
Double envelope CFLs protecting from UV light also means reducing their ordinary light output still more
There is other irony about CFLs already, eg leave them on, waste energy, switch them on-off, shorten their life...
Basically, bulbs are the wrong format for fluorescent lighting technology, best in long tube form, just like LEDs have natural lighting advantages in sheet form.
The CFL and LED natural advantages are compromised in offering politically pushed incandescent-copying lighting.
Austria based Peter Stenzel's now revised site at Gluehbirne.ist.org ("Argumente für die Glühbirne", "Arguments in support of incandescent light bulbs") is an excellent resource, whether you live in Europe or not, as already linked in the Resource Links section.
Note that it includes many more sections than may seem from below, including well illustrated lighting comparisons, special sections on CFL and LED issues, regulatory news, campaigns/petitions in different countries, and more, also from outside the EU.
Google translated English version (linked pages from that should also automatically be translated, to a reasonably understandable English).
Part-view of the front page in German embedded below
Continuing the Philips prize awarded LED bulb saga,
Kevan has confirmed some dimming and the issues of the bulb as also found by the US Government L Prize test review and designated lab reports in the main post earlier.
From Save the Bulb blog, 13 May 2012
(original post has some more images)
I have spent the last couple of weeks in San Francisco and taken the opportunity to observe the impact of the Californian ban on incandescent lamps that was implemented in January 2011. Basically it has had zero effect. Standard incandescent lamps are freely available through all retail supply outlets. I have checked corner stores, supermarkets, neighborhood hardware stores and DIY sheds all have a full range of conventional incandescent lamps. The “Energy Saving” options vary considerably. Most stores have a reasonable complement of CFLs some have halogen incandescent replacements but only on hardware store and the DIY sheds carry any LED incandescent replacements and just the DIY shed had the L prize lamp that I was very keen to get my hands on. These LED options are all selling in the range $17 to $24.
There has been so much store set by the quality of the L prize lamp that I was very keen to get one as it seems unlikely we will get them in the UK anytime soon. The first thing that surprised me was the extent of packaging for what is supposed to be an environmentally friendly product.
When first switched on I have to concede that the appearance of the light was OK in comparison to the GE Reveal lamp that it was replacing. The reveal is an incandescent with a slight blue tint.
As expected when dimmed things changed dramatically:....
The L prize got cooler in appearance and the perceived colour rendering became much worse casting a gloomy grey in the space. the lamp also suddenly went out about half way through the travel of the dimmer’s slider, the GE lamp dimmed right down to the minimum setting. What was really alarming was that the L prize lamp would not switch on at dimmer settings below about 70%. This was a serious problem in this location where three way switching was installed.
Really I am somewhat disappointed in a product that cost me $19.75 and does not work reliably at less than full power even when it claims to be dimmable. Solutions such as this must be made fully compatible with existing wiring infrastructure.
Another point about the massive cost for these lamps is whether or not the claimed savings are realistic in domestic use. How many people will be using the same lighting after 22 years? How many will still be living in the same house or apartment? At 58 years old I have to question whether I will still be alive to realise these claimed savings! It really is not good enough that the best of these lamp replacement products should be priced so high and fail to meet reasonable performance expectations that at least they do not risk leaving people in darkness! I do feel that the general lamp buying public are being conned into overspending for overcomplicated and ineffective products.
This page from EarthLed shows a dissection of the L prize lamp. It really does question the holistic sustainability of replacing such an elegantly simple device as the traditional incandescent lamp with something that requires computing power that would shame the flight computers of the Mercury and Gemini space programmes and has more electronic components than a transistor radio! All in all the resources used to make this thing are truly excessive for the required functionality.
On the Dimming issue,
unsurprisingly it mirrors CFL problems since LEDs also have spiky emission spectra and with these LED types also use similar (phosphorescent) coating to help spread the light.
And dimming after all is also an “energy saving” benefit, that ban proponents welcome!
Renowned lighting designer and Congress lighting consultant Howard Brandston concurs on the dimming and other issues..
"The testing of this LED lamp was very narrow in scope and did not include some of the most important aspects of residential lighting.
As a lighting designer my primary concerns is the quality of the color of light emitted throughout the complete cycle of being dimmed, a common situation in homes.
In this use the lamp leaves much to be desired so I would never specify it."
A further interesting observation today (May 16) by Kevan
Apparently what I have is not the L Prize lamps but a confusing look-alike also sold by Philips!
This one is a Chinese made version, The L prize version itself is ”Assembled in the USA”.
So Philips are knocking off their own products!
The L Prize version is obviously too expensive for normal retail and is going out through specialists such as EarthLed!
... So are Philips using L Prize specs highlighted in reviews (eg a comparatively high lumen per watt efficiency), and the “kudos” from winning the L Prize, to push sales of cheaper inferior Chinese versions in ordinary stores for Joe Public who is assumed not to question quality and specs?
As seen from the recent series of posts here about the new Philips LED bulb that won the American Government, L Prize (more), a particular source of interest was lighting engineer Philip Premysler's observations.
Following discrepancies he discovered in how the prize was awarded,
including deficiencies in the bulb itself, his further request for information has met with some resistance, as he allows me to make public... (his capitals, my added bold style highlights)
"The telltale sign of the Dept of Energy (DoE) having RIGGED the L-Prize contest is the DoE's refusal to release certain test reports on the L-Prize entry.
Several of test reports that are listed in the "Independent Data" column of the L Prize summary document were requested under the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA].
Based on the summary document we know these document would show failures of the L-Prize “winner” to meet the contest requirements.
The decision by the DoE to refuse to release the documents was appealed to the DoE’s Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) and the DoE was ordered to make a legal determination based on specific legal criteria as to whether the documents could be released
(see http://www.oha.doe.gov/cases/foia/FIA-11-0012.pdf)."
The mentioned test review summary document and appeal documents,
the test review report was as said previously discussed here.
"So far, the DoE has refused to carry out the OHA order. (Likely they see no way to avoid releasing the documents if they apply the OHA’s criteria)
Their tactic for stonewalling is absurd.
The DoE states that they expected the OHA to order a new search for documents and even though this did not happen and was not likely to happen they commenced a new search anyway, found some additional documents other than those requested and incurred some expenses. Then they took the position that unless payment for the new search was made by me, they would refuse to process the request. Thus far they have not responded to the OHA remand.
I should emphasize that there was no reason for the DoE to assume that the OHA would order a new search because the FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request and appeal concerned specific documents that were identified by file name. In order for the DoE to make its initial negative response to the FOIA request they would have had to have already located the documents in question."
Summarized...
"Regarding the FOIA appeal, as may expected the DoE is stonewalling. They have yet to abide by the remand from the Office of Hearings and Appeals. I may appeal but I don't know how long that would take. Hopefully congress takes up an investigation and obtains all the relevant documents. In the meantime there is the published test report from Philips own website and there is the test report from the SCE, which you did a nice job on reviewing an selecting quotes.
The way in which the DoE is stonewalling is somewhat "creative". They claim they incorrectly assumed the OHA would order an expanded document search and therefore went ahead and conducted a document search and incurred some expense which they want me to pay. Apparently it is their position that they will disregard the remand order from the OHA until I pay for the expanded search which nobody requested (not me or the OHA)."
As previously covered, the Philips LED Prize bulb, its quality issues, and how Philips won the US Government prize for it:
The lobbying, the evading of rules, the poor quality of the bulb on testing - as referenced with competition rules, patents, lobbying finance records, the prize committee's own lab test document, etc...
Standing against that information,
the US Dept of Energy official site (lightingprize.org) - has a lot more about the evaluation procedure - including their video about the bulb testing:
The just released (April 2012) stress test report follows below.
Alternative link to this PDF document.
As seen, the lab involved was the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, as also covered in the mentioned complete post and test committee review therein.
Having looked inside a LED bulb,
there are naturally enough a lot more examples of CFL dissections out there,
having been around longer as replacements for regular incandescent bulbs...
From the EE Times article
"How compact fluorescent lamps work--and how to dim them"
A good, very technical description of CFL function.
From Australian engineer Rod Elliott's article
"Should There be a Ban on Incandescent Lamps?"
A good lengthy account also for the layman, which despite the title actually mainly deals with CFL issues in all aspects, in usage, safety issues and more.
This is an Osram CFL from a few years ago that has stopped working. I cut the base in half with an angle grinder as a hacksaw would not cut the black insulating material in the bayonet connector. This rather brutal approach destroyed quite a few components on the board. This is basically a pretty crude electronic fluorescent gear that is not nearly as efficient as it could be as evidenced by the rather large choke, the thing that looks like a transformer with an iron core and copper windings at the back. This lamp (when it was working!) started with a brief flicker. One of the broken bits was a neon lamp as are found in old fashioned starters so I suspect this was part of a crude and inefficient capacitor start, these are also likely to fail before other parts of the lamp.
The weight of this lamp was 82 grammes, 20 grammes was the circuit board that may well have been working and certainly is in many lamps that are thrown away. The glass tube is 40 grammes, the metal lamp cap 6 grammes therefore 16 grammes of plastics derived from fossil fuels makes the remainder. The mercury content will be anything between 2mg and 5mg depending on the age and manufacturer of the lamp.
The construction of this lamp allows the electronics module to be easily separated from the tube however the plastic base is fixed to the tube with expanded foam so it would be difficult to separate the plastic and glass for recycling.
A typical equivalent Incandescent lamp weighs 34 grammes approximately 27 grammes of this being the glass envelope, cap approximately 6 grammes and approximately 1 gramme of metals including the filament.
Since writing this page some further information has come to my attention. As part of the EuP work done by VITO, spreadsheets were used to analyse the environmental impact of different lamp types. The spreadsheets were originally written for the assessment of the impact of general domestic electrical equipment so there may be errors due to the relative size of lamps. The outputs of the spreadsheet included the following numbers:
• Energy used in manufacture:
GLS 1 MJ = 0.28KwH
CFLi 12MJ = 3.33 KwH
[ed- as from similar Osram and Philips CFL manufacture data, such energy usage quoted is from the assembly of already made components. Including the energy needed to make the components themselves, raises CFL energy use to 40 times or more that of incandescents, as from Dr Stanjek's study (commissioned by Greenpeace, so hardly research biased): Referenced, with more on the issue: ceolas.net/#li16x]
• Pollutants created in manufacture and winning the materials required:
GLS 5 grammes, non hazardous
CFLi 128 grammes, 78 grammes being hazardous waste
So basically each CFLi manufactured causes one and a half times its weight in waste and a weight equal to itself in hazardous waste. As I said above these figures are subject to question but are alarming as they stand.
On a lighter, nay, dimmer note...
a reminder from a previous post
Imagine calling a fluorescent bulb Tru Dim ;-)
(it's dimmable, apparently, and full of fun components)
What? Candles or simple regular bulbs?
Simplicity is sooo old-fashioned, don't you know!
Put a plug to this lot, and light up the future!
In past weeks here, an extensive coverage of the political, technical, and other issues around the new Philips bulb that was launched in the USA on "Earth Day", (yes, maybe all those components need good "earthing", for safety... LEDs - like CFLs - have component and environmental concerns, as covered on ceolas.net/#li20ledax).
So, what about a look inside?
The following is from the Earth Led Store, Golden, Colorado USA, who - as a counterbalance to previous critical article references posted here - enthusiastically support the bulb
(as it happens, "original price: $ 59.99, offer $ 49.94, and Philips is offering a $10 rebate when you purchase $30 worth of Philips LED products", so perhaps the sale enthusiasm has some financial justification too, given such taxpayer funded rebate programs ;-) )
They do go on to an interesting dissection of the bulb,
on this web page (there are more images on it).
This is the final production version of the EnduraLED A19 L-Prize off, as you can see it is a streamlined three light chamber design compared to the original L-Prize submission which used four chambers. You will also notice that the remote phosphor caps are much more yellowish when compared to the AmbientLED 12.5 Watt which is shown below for comparison.
So why the shift in color of the phosphor from an orange color to a yellowish tint? Lets open the bulb up to find out:
Removing the phosphor caps reveals the L-Prize bulb actually contains two different looking LEDs. Since the old AmbientLED used royal blue LEDs, could this bulb be mixing colors (Red + Blue LEDs) to achieve its high 92 CRI?
Indeed it does and this also explains the shift in the color of the outside phosphor caps as well.
Digging in deeper, we removed the LED circuit boards and found them to be extremely well built with individual ribbon connectors.
The LED circuit boards are secured to the heatsink with a face plate that ensures a tight bonding to the adhesive thermal interface material.
The heatsink itself is quite high quality and as mentioned before has 3 cavities or chambers where the above LED module assemblies reside.
Deep inside the heatsink resides the main driver board. It is covered in rubber to prevent humming and is very difficult to remove in one piece. We tried unsuccessfully to do so but were still able to remove it fairly intact. Its one of the most elegant drivers we've seen thus far and is primarily built around Cypress Semiconductors CY8CLEDAC03L microcontroller.
The CY8CLED is quite powerful and you can read more about it here at Cypress Semi's Site: http://www.cypress.com/?rID=38553
Other components of note are a main distribution board that exists at the top of the bulb to direct power to each of the main led modules.
Here is pretty much everything spread out on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper:
The top right shows some of the capacitors contained inside. All are high quality japanese made rubycon capacitors. Overall, quite an amazing product both inside and out. Easily the best built LED we have seen so far.
If you would like to see a video of the L-Prize in action, check it out below. We hope you enjoyed our first "On The Inside" feature. Stay tuned for our next in the near future.
Comment
Certainly, as mentioned before, the bulb has some attractive qualities,
whatever about the price, specification and prize issues covered before.
But again, as also covered, the point is not that LEDs don't have their advantages, rather that all bulbs, including incandescents do:
There is a massive focus - particularly in the USA - on energy and money saving that may or may not arise from using different bulbs.
Ironically the energy and money saving aspects hardly hold overall, as covered on the "Deception behind Banning Bulbs" rundown.
But even if supposed savings arise, that is of course only part of the issue - arguably, light quality and other usage issues are the main reason for using any light bulb, and houses or apartments have many different conditions calling for different types of lighting.
The above article mentions how the blue and red LED mix allows for a higher CRI (color rendering index) rating of 92.
Incandescents are 100, an optimal rating, but more importantly such engineered improved CRI ratings for LEDs ignores that pure color sources are mixed, so that a true broad light spectrum is not obtained - just a spiky spectrum light output, whether as part of Red-Green-Blue LEDs or, as here, white LEDs, that use phosphorescent coating - which is why photographers and filmakers and indeed those who are sensitive to their light surroundings are unhappy with the supposed CRI ratings.
LEDs have their own spotlight and other advantages.
It is therefore ironic that, like here, "warm incandescent" light quality is chased, rather than own innate LED flexibly altered pure color light output advantages (colors alterable just like RGB red-green-blue light points on TV screens, which of course is indeed often nowadays similar Light-Emitting-Diode technology, and is what OLED type sheet lighting is about).
To (badly) copy incandescent light quality - like with the Philips bulb here, which has a fixed color temperature of 2700, just like an incandescent - is just another part of the irony of banning light sources optimal for such usage requirements.
The above bulb would be better served either by a white daylight balance, at least as an option, or by adding green leds to have the advantage that some LED bulbs have of a modifiable light color output (as color temperature), particularly for the price asked, subsidised or not.
Regarding last post on the Philips prize committee technical review (the right side comments),
a copy of the document below.
As said earlier, it was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
See the original post about the L-Prize for a full rundown of the issues, including more about the testing procedure, the results, and the review comments as in the document copied above:
That post is also kept updated, for overview clarity, with the information here.
Some recent relevant comments on different posts relating to the testing, extra highlighting (capital letters in original) and direct linking added:
To address the points above as to whether the contest was rigged. If the L-Prize bulb clearly FAILED a technical test where there is a clear cut pass or fail outcome that any freshman engineering student can judge, but the technical review committee writes in PASS and explains, in SECRET, without publishing a rules update, that they are lowering the standard so that they can write in PASS, this is clear cut CORRUPTION.
The technical review committee sought to justify secretly altering the uniformity standard stating
“..however, independent data verifies that this distribution is actually much more uniform than a standard incandescent lamp …“
While there can be no justification for secretly lowering the standard to rigg the contest, astoundingly (or not) this statement is false.
Calculating the standard deviation for the L-Prize bulb tested by the DoE and a standard incandescent lamp, using data provided by the Department of Energy shows that L-Prize lamp tested by the DoE was actually less uniform.
See Light Distribution Analysis (alt link)
The production version of the L-Prize (which by the way appears to be a Chinese product) also does not meet the published L-Prize uniformity criteria of +/-10% of average in the zone 0 to 150 degrees.
See data on page 41 of usa.lighting.philips.com document
Also see: Lab plots of light distribution of Philips bulb (alt link)
The stated procedure for the contest was that if the entry failed a required test the entry would fail.
See flowchart on page 15 of L-Prize competition rules.
Southern California Edison (SCE) which was involved in field testing Philips L-Prize entry, decided to lab test 16 of the bulbs.
It turns out 1 of the 16 exhibited a failure mode in which the light turned red by the time it had 1502 hours of run time. This early failure casts doubt on the 20,000 hour (with 95% confidence) lifetime touted by the Department of Energy.
See link on (Emerging Technologies Coordinating Council) web page http://www.etcc-ca.com/component/content/article/48-Commercial/3044-l-prize-lab-evaluation which has link to report
Quoting from the mentioned Emerging Technologies Coordinating Council (ETCC)webpage
This independent lab assessment was initiated in support of both SCE’s L Prize field testing efforts, as well as its energy efficiency incentive/rebate programs.
SCE’s lab testing capabilities present an enormous resource in understanding and developing confidence in the performance of these units. A winning product stands to undergo considerable mileage in terms of usage/acceptance across the United States. As leaders in energy efficiency, it is important that California utilities stay active in monitoring/assessing such technologies.
Regarding the SCE report about the bulb (long pdf document), from the summary:
The technology shows promise in terms of meeting the efficiency and performance criteria set forth in the L Prize.
However, to better assess feasible implementation into incentive
programs, more investigation is recommended in three key areas:
- Lifetime Testing
o The variation of savings realized with these products throughout their lifetime is not well understood at this point.
Long lifetimes are one of the significant advantages of SSL technology, and should be better understood with this product application.
- Dimming capabilities/issues
o It is not currently known how these products perform when used with other dimmers.
o Their observed inability to toggle off with the selected ELV dimmer presents a large barrier, which needs to be overcome for successful implementation.
(When the ON/OFF function was toggled on the dimmer paired with this product, the product was not able to shut off. It encountered visible flickering at a dimly lit state in the OFF position.)
o The issue of green color shift at low dimming is a barrier to investigate/address for successful implementation
- Thermal effects on product performance
o These lamps are specified to use in dry locations, and not within totally enclosed fixtures. The effects of ambient temperatures/humidities on this technology’s performance and lifetime are not well understood at this point.
The conditions these lamps were subjected to in this lab assessment are within a narrow range, when taking into consideration the various climate zones/applications these general-purpose devices may see.
These key areas represent significant barriers,
to acceptance of this technology when compared with baseline CFLs and incandescents.
Further efforts are recommended to fully understand the benefits of SSL technology in this application, and ensure that product utility is not significantly impacted when encouraging customers to purchase products that are more efficient.
It is recommended that the results of the DOE’s evaluation of the first entry to the “60 Watt incandescent” category be closely monitored;
further understanding of this technology may be achieved through more collaboration with DOE testing, as DOE efforts are initiated/completed.
Comment
Regarding this bulb,
dimming is also criticized along with other issues in the committee technical review, above.
Regarding LED technology in general,
as this report also takes up, there are indeed several questionable issues relating to lifespan, enduring brightness, ambient temperature effects etc - apart from the light quality itself:
See the Ceolas website referenced rundown.
The "save energy/money in usage" push should not ignore such factors,
or for that matter the life cycle environmental impact, in terms of components in manufacture (more), energy/emissions in production and (overseas) transport, and environmental dumping when not recycled.
Issues over the Philips LED Prize bulb was originally extensively covered in a March post, that has been comprehensively updated in the last couple of days.
A further post about Philips lobbying finance activities in the USA,
as per Senate and other records, also in relation to the LED bulb, was covered in the last post here.
But there is more...
As seen in the comments to the original post about it March post, the understandable point was raised that the prize testing committee had passed the bulb in all respects, so how could the
criticism be relevant.
All the referenced criticism relating to the bulb quality (and other issues about the bulb and the award) will not be repeated here - see previous posts.
But with respect to the lab testing,
in looking at the Test Review Comments themselves on the right hand side of their own document (click on it to enlarge), more discrepancies start to show up.
[ed- a copy of the document also in the post following this one]
While the bulb obviously passes the tests (or of course the prize could not be awarded!), it therefore does so with a lot of provisos, such that Philips own prototype testing are accepted when prize testing lab results show otherwise, and Philips promises about "criterions will be met in production lamp" are also accepted.
Moreover, prize testing lab names whose results conflict are rubbed out (at least 2 labs involved, possibly run by the DOE, judging by the article below). Why not test results of publicly named labs, in a publicly awarded prize with public money?
As seen in other parts of the assessment the testing by a certain PNNL is not rubbed out. (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is one of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories).
In one part, additional to the other criticism mentioned: "Testing conducted by PNNL with a wide variety of dimmers showed several issues with the submitted lamps".
The Washington Beacon (see previous posts) in a further article in April by Bill McMorris, has more on this and other previously mentioned issues. Notice that they also point out how the prize testing lab names were rubbed out. My highlighting again:
The Department of Energy awarded lighting giant Philips the $10 million L Prize despite the fact that the winning energy-efficient bulb failed to meet several contest criteria requirements, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Philips raised eyebrows when it debuted the winning bulb with a $50 price tag. That is far beyond the $22 cost recommended by the department, which is now working with utility companies to cut back on the upfront cost through rebates.
Department documents, however, cast doubt on whether the expensive LED bulb was even worthy of the prize.
Contest rules outlined by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act required the winning L Prize bulb to shine at 900 lumens. A department report on 200 bulbs tested at two different facilities showed that nearly 70 bulbs failed to meet that standard, including more than 60 percent of the bulbs tested at one of the labs.
“The integrating sphere test from the [lab name redacted] shows that only 5 of 100 samples tested were below 900 lumens, but the [lab name redacted] integrating sphere testing shows 38 samples that were over 900lm and 62 were under,” the report reads.
Despite Philips’ poor showing at the DOE lab tests, the department passed the bulb after receiving reassurance from the Dutch company.
“Philips data shows all tested lamps (2000) were above 900 lumens. Philips test and modeling data indicate…this criterion will be met in the production lamp,” the report continued.
[More such acceptances of Philips own lab results and promise for production lamp compliance can as said be seen directly on the Test Committee Review comments on the right side of their document report (click on it to enlarge)]
A department spokeswoman insisted that the bulbs met the requirements.
“The minimum output measured in this sample of 200 lamps was 873 lumens and the maximum was 967 lumens, a range consistent with normal manufacturing tolerances,” the spokeswoman said. “The average light output of the 200 samples tested was 910 lumens.”
One lighting expert, however, said the average is not a good indicator of LED performance.
“You have to be very careful in choosing LEDs because there is difficulty in uniformity,” the expert said. “Having that many bulbs fail is suspect, especially if you plan on taking these bulbs to the market.”
Philips spokeswoman Silvie Casanova said the L Prize bulb that will hit store shelves later this spring fulfills every L Prize requirement.
“I’m sure that in the test run, there might have been some that had some performance issues, but I’m sure the department is looking at a baseline of the bulbs overall performance,” she said. “It does meet the requirements; we’re going through Energy Star testing right now” that will verify the company data.
Contest rules mandated that an entrant that failed to meet basic standards would be “terminated” and forced to return to square one of the competition.
There is no indication that Philips’ entry was disqualified, however.
Scientists who developed rival bulbs were outraged when they heard that the department allowed Philips to move forward.
“We treated the standards as Gospel: you had to have 900 lumens, you had to have the right color, the right temperature, the right (light distribution),” said one engineer who worked on the Lighting Sciences Group’s L Prize design.
“We went through revision after revision because if you change the (brightness), the color could be wrong and we’d start over. If we had known we could have fudged the (brightness) then everything else becomes easy,” the engineer said.
In 2009, when other lighting companies were still at the design phase of the process, Philips submitted a 2,000-bulb sample to the department. The quick submission intimidated many others vying for the L Prize, according to multiple industry insiders.
“Not once did the DOE ever let anyone know about the testing results; there was no transparency,” another lighting expert said. “If they had made it known in 2010 that Philips didn’t pass the test, then other competitors would have proceeded forward. The inference was that they passed.”
The department closed the competition and awarded Philips the $10 million prize in August 2011.
The brightness test was not the only requirement that Philips may not have reached. Department notes also indicate that reviewers changed the light distribution criteria to Philips’ favor.
“Testing and modeling of prototype production lamps show the luminous intensity distribution falling below 10 percent from the mean near 150 degrees,” the report said. “However, the TSC finds the use of the 0-135 degree zone acceptable … this is different than the 0-150 zone specified.”
“The department cannot just change the rules on how they are going to test, especially if they don’t tell other competitors about the rule change,” said a second lighting insider. “Only Philips benefited from the criteria change.”
The contest has been marred by several controversies since it opened in 2008.
A House Appropriations Committee report issued in June slammed the department for announcing the $10 million prize without prior approval from Congress.
“The Committee strongly opposes the Department announcing funding opportunities when those funds have not yet been made available by Congress,” the report said. “In the case of the L Prize, the Department risks damaging its credibility.”
The warning was enough to worry higher-ups at Philips, which spent nearly $1.8 million lobbying Congress to fund the program.
The bulb’s $50 price tag also produced sticker shock among industry insiders. It is about double the cost of existing LED bulbs and about fifty times higher than the 60-watt incandescent bulb it was designed to replace.
“I’m impressed with the technology, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who’s not,” the former LSG engineer said. “But we were going for a $22 bulb, forget rebates, and Philips missed it by a mile.”
The L Prize winner is expected to last 25,000 hours and save consumers $160 over the lifetime of the bulb compared to 60-watt incandescent bulbs, which were outlawed by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA).
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said the competition helped move LED technology forward by providing companies with incentives to make energy efficient bulbs.
“The idea of that light bulb contest was to provide for a goal going further down to get a light bulb that eventually, Americans can afford,” he told Congress in March.
The former LSG executive is not convinced.
“Letting (the bulb) come out that expensive, I think it set the market back … people are looking for a return on investment and this just tells them they can’t afford any LED bulbs,” he said. “I can’t blame the U.S. citizens for saying, ‘my God, the government is wasting our money.’”
In March, DOE opened the second round of the L Prize competition, which will aim to replace the existing halogen floodlight.
"Sense and Simplicity" as it says in the image!
They must be talking about simple sensible safe and easily made incandescents?
The above image is from the Foundry, at Heritage.org, thanks...
I told them about my post on Philips, Osram and the UN en.lighten program,
and I now see they happened to have an article on the same topic the day after without any reply or credit (and it was not a topical news item, covered by anyone else at the time) - though in fairness it's a well laid out summary of the issues.
Given the number of recent posts about Philips on this blog,
it might seem that I have something against them.
Actually it's rather the news, reports and research that keep coming up about Philips.
Regarding the LED prize 50 dollar bulb,
covered in this earlier post, the reported comment by a Philip Premysler (Philip's take on Philips!) was particularly interesting in its thoroughness.
He has since updated this with some more information,
íncluding a reference list with further links regarding Philips lobbying, not just for the LED prize, but also with respect to Philips supporting the ban on unprofitable simple incandescents
• In 2007, Phillips Holding USA Inc. Spent At Least $418,446 Lobbying The Department Of Energy On H.R. 6.
(Senate Office Of Public Records, Lobbying Disclosure Form, 8/01/07; Senate Office Of Public Records, Lobbying Disclosure Form, 2/14/08) • Philips Spent An Additional $160,000 Lobbying Congress On H.R. 6 Through Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP.
(Senate Office Of Public Records, Lobbying Disclosure Form, 8/8/07)
also, from the quoted article by Bill Mc Morris...
Philips received about $5.6 million from the federal stimulus to advance its LED lighting technology.
It spent nearly as much—$4.5 million since 2008—lobbying Congress and the Obama administration for bills friendly to lighting appropriations.
For completeteness,
the whole updated statement by Philip Premysler, relating to the LED prize
(author's emphasis in capital letters, my highlights in bold style):
There are greater troubling issues beyond the price.
The problem is that the L-Prize contest which was supposed to foster U.S. green technology competitiveness was RIGGED.
As a foreign based (headquartered) corporation Philips was excluded from eligibility according to the law that established the L-Prize, in particular public law 110-140 section 655(f)(1).
Under U.S. federal law the term “a primary place of business” used in the statute refers to the single headquarters location, which in the case of Philips is Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Philips, of course, would have known that they were ineligible, so they put out PR flak alleging that the bulb was the result of a global effort. The truth, as evidenced in Philips patent on the bulb, is otherwise.
See Philips L-Bulb Patent.
The bulb was developed in the Netherlands: The patent application which was, originally filed in Europe in 2008, but published in the U.S. two months after the Philips executive made his misrepresentations, lists only Dutch inventors, no U.S. inventors and assignes the patent to the Dutch Philips entity, not to a U.S. entity.
When this issue arose after the announcement of Philips as the L-Prize "winner",
the CEO of Philips Lighting North America Zia Eftekhar went on record falsely stating that the L-Prize bulb was "conceived" and had its "origins" in the U.S.
See EE Times article
[Quoting the article:
"But what about the development of the bulb, and where will it be manufactured? Zia Eftekhar, CEO of Philips Lighting North America, wanted to set the record straight:
He told me the L Prize bulb “..was conceived, designed, and will be manufactured in the United States.... He repeated this for emphasis: “The origins and development of this product, as well as its future manufacturing are all in the United States."]
These were falsehoods.
In fact Philips' L-Prize entry was invented by three dutch inventors and assigned to Philips of the Netherlands. [As from patent document previously mentioned]
Philips also spent $1.79 Million lobbying for appropriation for the L-PRIZE,
(as referenced, including from Senate Office Of Public Records, Lobbying Disclosure Forms).
Moreover, "A House Appropriations Committee report issued in June slammed the department for announcing the $10 million prize without prior approval from Congress." (Washington Beacon article by Bill McMorris)
The L-Prize entry also failed to meet key technical requirements of the contest. The Philips entry does not meet the stated uniformity requirement of the contest. This is admitted in a document [in its review comments] obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, see http://tinyurl.com/43ECMQM
[alt link to the document source here, easier magnifiable document copy here (click on it to enlarge)].
The curt justification asserted in that document based on comparing uniformity to a standard incandescent lamp is factually (quantifiably) false. The putative L-Prize winner is actually less uniform.
The Philips entry also failed to produce the required amount of light.
In one test 62 out of 100 bulbs failed (see the above linked document).
Whether the commercialized version will consistently produce the required amount of light is an open question [ed- unlikely given that the commercial version is not as good see above]. HOWEVER the stated procedure for the contest was that if the entry failed a required test, the entry would fail.
What happened is that Philips wanted prematurely to claim the prize
(as in Reason.com article) and the Department of Energy did not want to follow the rules and fail them, rather they embarked on RIGGING the contest. They kept the failure secret and proceeded with other tests.
[ed- more on the testing debacle below, also see the comments below to this post]
The result is that a bulb developed by Dutch inventors, built with some (possibly most) of its parts made in Shenzhen China (see http://www.dailytech.com/Philips...) has been given a great initial advantage which may allow it to dominate U.S. competitors, even though the contest is RIGGED.
We may wind up with Dutch citizens enjoying social welfare benefits such as vacations for the unemployed, supported by Chinese workers working 12 hours a day and American consumers squeezed by $50 light bulb prices whether they pay that amount at the check out counter or indirectly pay for subsidies through their electric bill [ed- including the currently planned taxpayer subsidies passed on to stores for price reductions at point of sale].
German critical TV documentary about the light bulb ban
45 minutes to be broadcast on Thursday 19 April
(in German - but the visuals make much of the criticism of the ban clear enough, including of the replacement lighting like the main ones offered and pushed, the fluorescent bulbs or CFLs)
Thank you to Rudolf Hannot and Siegfried Rotthäuser of Heatball (heatball.de) for the information:
The Heatball concept has been covered several times on this blog, the last and most comprehensive post at time of writing being here.
Post updated through April 19 - May 1 with new information.
Also, more about Philips lobbying finance in the more recent post here with Senate disclosure records etc.
Otherwise, the post from April 23, and posts that follow about the prize committee lab testing, are also copied below to keep the information complete in one place.
Regarding the earlier post here: http://freedomlightbulb.blogspot.com/2012/02/philips-osram-and-un-how-we-will.html
"Philips, Osram, the UN and the World Bank:
How we will "en.lighten" the World in 2012"
As seen that was about the worldwide en.lighten program, with public subsidies allowing major manufacturers to dump otherwise unsold bulbs on developing countries.
Philips have been in the news again regarding their prize USA bulb
(Competition website: Competition rules)
Some are entirely made and tested in China, while for the American market, at least in terms of information given in relation to the prize, it is assembled in the U.S. from components manufactured in Shenzhen, China with LED chips made in San Jose, California.
A lot seems to have been going on about it behind the scenes, which also illustrates light subsidy issues more generally, albeit more a reflection of the US Dept of Energy than on Philips, who obviously will take whatever money is going :-)
One of the first articles reporting back on the issue came from the Washington Post, Peter Whoriskey, on the 9th of March, extracts:
The U.S. government last year announced a $10 million award, dubbed the “L Prize,” for any manufacturer that could create a “green” but affordable light bulb.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the prize would spur industry to offer the costly bulbs, known as LEDs, at prices “affordable for American families.” There was also a “Buy America” component. Portions of the bulb would have to be made in the United States.
Now the winning bulb is on the market.
The price is $50.
Retailers said the bulb, made by Philips, is likely to be too pricey to have broad appeal. Similar LED bulbs are less than half the cost.
How the expensive bulb won a $10 million government prize meant to foster energy-efficient affordability is one of the curiosities that arise as the country undergoes a massive, mandated turnover from traditional incandescent lamps to more energy-efficient ones.
A rebuttal from both the Dept of Energy and Philips, was to note that the price was expected to come down to 20 dollars or so.
First of all,
this of course raises the general issue of "paying upfront for future savings", and the many reasons that hardly holds with energy efficiency regulations,
in particular light bulb legislation: As extensively covered on Ceolas.net website
from http://ceolas.net/#li12x onwards, and summarized in the deception rundown on the blog, as in savings point 8.
The issue about "CFLs and LEDs becoming cheaper in the future",
is also covered in that rundown, and taken up more extensively on the Send Your Light Bulbs to Washington post, "Will CFLs and LEDs become Cheaper?"
Still, the Philips story has a lot of behind the scenes intrigue to it...
soon after the Washington Post story, also on 9th March, the Reason.com article by Katherine Mangu-Ward Feds Pay $10 Million for $50 Light Bulb, extracts and highlights:
In 2007, when Congress passed legislation that would gradually ban old school incandescent light bulbs, they added a carrot to the pile of sticks: A $10 million dollar prize to encourage the development of a cheap, green, domestic light bulb to replace the dearly departed Edison model.
Five years later, that bulb is coming to a hardware store near you. It will cost you 50 bucks. It also fails to meet many of the original prize specifications. The winner, Dutch electronics company Philips, was the one and only entrant, suggesting that the prize failed to stimulate widespread additional private spending on R&D. The portion of the LED bulb made in America is less than initially envisioned. And the guidelines for pricing were utterly ignored: The goal was $22 price tag in the first year, falling rapidly to $8 by year three.
In this case, the prize was a first-past-the-post arrangement. So electronics giant Philips, which also makes a Chinese-manufactured version of the same product for half the cost, quickly fiddled with the specs and figured out a way to make some of the chips in San Jose—all jobs that will go to American citizens, no doubt—and do the assembly in Wisconsin. Two other companies had announced their intention to join the fray, General Electric and Lighting Science Group, when the Department of Energy abruptly declared a winner.
"We are pleased to be the only one who has submitted anything," chief executive of Philips Lighting North America Zia Eftekhar told National Geographic. "Even though I'm unbelievably happy we won, it's still good to challenge the entire industry to move the technology forward."
One part of that statement is undoubtedly true—Philips was likely quite satisfied to be the only company in the running—but the idea that the prize has moved or will move the industry forward is silly. Instead of spending the time and energy on genuine innovation, Philips diverted resources from developing the bulbs they were planning to build overseas and sell in the United States to tweak their product to conform (not even all that well) to semi-arbitrary guidelines written by a bunch of bureaucrats with the goal of dispensing some guilt cash that was tacked onto a bill that made a product preferred by virtually everyone in the country at the time illegal.
The goal for this prize shouldn't have been fastest, it should have been best. By the time the rules of the competition were announced, it was already apparent that the nation's basic light bulb needs were not going to go unmet. But rather than aim high, the Department of Energy set its sights squarely on a successful press conference at which the backs of congressmen, department officials, and energy execs could be patted and/or scratched. Mission accomplished.
The trade publication Energy Efficiency & Technology notes that the bulbs that are coming to market are actually a little different than the model that won the competition: “The commercial lamp has three rather than four optical segments and uses fewer LEDs. The reason, says Philips, is that LED technology has progressed a bit even since the end of the contest.” In other words, the carrot is worse than irrelevant. Philips dropped whatever they had into the feds’ laps in order to grab the prize and will continue to improve the bulb, running as fast as they can ahead of the stick. (Frankly, it’s a little surprising the sticky gears of the energy bureaucracy didn’t require the company to stick with the federally tested and approved model in order to maintain its favored status. Thanks goodness for small favors.)
While a $10 million check to sell a slight variation on a product you were developing anyway seems like a pretty sweet deal, it’s actually chump change compared to the real prize: preferential treatment by federal buyers and others major players who are beholden to the feds, such as the many utility companies offering subsidies to customers who purchase the bulbs. The knowledge of this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow further reduced Philips' incentive to keep prices low.
But wait: Why would a company that sells power want to subsidize products that help people consume less of what they’re selling? Ordinary economics no longer applies once you go through the looking glass into much of the heavily regulated utility sector. In California, for example, profits and consumption have been “decoupled”: Prices are based solely on what the state deems to be a fair rate of return. Which means that more demand for energy—accompanied by the possibility that new power plants must be built—is just an expensive pain in someone’s butt, not an opportunity to make more money.
Add in a nudge from your industry’s primary federal regulator, and voila!: Power companies are dropping boatloads of Hamiltons on their customers. In fact, that $10 million figure is likely to increase as the Department of Energy pressures utilities to take a bigger bite out of the $50 monster they helped create.
That's not all..
among other observations seen since, the Washington Free Beacon article 14th March by Bill McMorris is of particular interest
"Obama's Dim Bulbs", extracts:
The department [of Energy] has gone from judge to partner to help Philips sell the product. It is now trying to coax utility companies to grant discounts and rebates to customers in order to create demand for the light bulb.
“We are actively working with (utilities) to hammer out deals to introduce the product to their region,” said an official familiar with the L-Prize. “DOE’s mission is energy savings and in order to get that there needs to be widespread market adoption.”
Thirty-one utility companies have partnered with the department and Philips to grant rebates to customers who purchase bulbs, the highest being a $25 rebate from Efficiency Vermont.
Philips Lighting USA has splashed references to the L-Prize bulb—a name assigned to the product by the federal government—and is doing its best to market the product to businesses before launching residential sales next month.
“I know everyone is looking at the $50 price tag, but Philips has been actively working to get those rebates,” company spokeswoman Silvie Casanova said. “The price reflects that it’s harder to make this bulb than existing 60 watt LEDs.”
That technology is also constructed at more expensive plants in Wisconsin and San Jose, rather than the Chinese factories that churn out the company’s existing line of energy efficient bulbs.
Other officials familiar with the project told the Washington Free Beacon that there is little the department or Philips can do to lower the price in the short-term except wait for consumers to adapt the new bulb, as traditional incandescents are phased out.
The steep price tag is not the competition’s first brush with controversy.
A House Appropriations Committee report (pdf) issued in June slammed the department for announcing the $10 million prize without prior approval from Congress.
“The Committee strongly opposes the Department announcing funding opportunities when those funds have not yet been made available by Congress,” the report reads. “In the case of the L Prize, the Department risks damaging its credibility.”
The warning was enough to worry higher-ups at Philips, which spent nearly $1.8 million lobbying Congress to fund the program.
The committee granted the award money to spare the department embarrassment, but changed its rules to prohibit “announcements in advance of appropriations.”
Philips received about $5.6 million from the federal stimulus to advance its LED lighting technology. It spent nearly as much—$4.5 million since 2008—lobbying Congress and the Obama administration for bills friendly to lighting appropriations.
Casanova refused to “talk to the lobbying spending,” but emphasized that the bulb maker did not use any stimulus dollars for researching the bulb.
“We didn’t get any money to develop this bulb,” she said.
Department officials are backing away from the contest’s initial call to draft an affordable bulb that could come to market at $22 and drop to $8 per bulb by its third year.
“The idea of that light bulb contest was to provide for a goal going further down to get a light bulb that eventually, Americans can afford,” Secretary of Energy Steven Chu told Congress on Tuesday.
Energy officials remain optimistic about the expensive competition and its initial results.
Department lab tests found that the bulbs will last up to 25,000 hours, which would save consumers about $160 over the lifetime of the bulb, according to department estimates.
The department plans to continue with the program, announcing a second competition in March.
The Washington Beacon (see above) in a further article in April by Bill McMorris, had more on this and other mentioned issues. Notice that they also point out how the prize testing lab names were rubbed out (more on this below, also see the technical review copy at the end). My highlighting again:
The Department of Energy awarded lighting giant Philips the $10 million L Prize despite the fact that the winning energy-efficient bulb failed to meet several contest criteria requirements, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Philips raised eyebrows when it debuted the winning bulb with a $50 price tag. That is far beyond the $22 cost recommended by the department, which is now working with utility companies to cut back on the upfront cost through rebates.
Department documents, however, cast doubt on whether the expensive LED bulb was even worthy of the prize.
Contest rules outlined by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act required the winning L Prize bulb to shine at 900 lumens. A department report on 200 bulbs tested at two different facilities showed that nearly 70 bulbs failed to meet that standard, including more than 60 percent of the bulbs tested at one of the labs.
“The integrating sphere test from the [lab name redacted] shows that only 5 of 100 samples tested were below 900 lumens, but the [lab name redacted] integrating sphere testing shows 38 samples that were over 900lm and 62 were under,” the report reads.
Despite Philips’ poor showing at the DOE lab tests, the department passed the bulb after receiving reassurance from the Dutch company.
“Philips data shows all tested lamps (2000) were above 900 lumens. Philips test and modeling data indicate…this criterion will be met in the production lamp,” the report continued.
[More such acceptances of Philips own lab results and promise for production lamp compliance can as said be seen directly on the Test Committee Review comments on the right side of their document report (click on it to enlarge)]
A department spokeswoman insisted that the bulbs met the requirements.
“The minimum output measured in this sample of 200 lamps was 873 lumens and the maximum was 967 lumens, a range consistent with normal manufacturing tolerances,” the spokeswoman said. “The average light output of the 200 samples tested was 910 lumens.”
One lighting expert, however, said the average is not a good indicator of LED performance.
“You have to be very careful in choosing LEDs because there is difficulty in uniformity,” the expert said. “Having that many bulbs fail is suspect, especially if you plan on taking these bulbs to the market.”
Philips spokeswoman Silvie Casanova said the L Prize bulb that will hit store shelves later this spring fulfills every L Prize requirement.
“I’m sure that in the test run, there might have been some that had some performance issues, but I’m sure the department is looking at a baseline of the bulbs overall performance,” she said. “It does meet the requirements; we’re going through Energy Star testing right now” that will verify the company data.
Contest rules mandated that an entrant that failed to meet basic standards would be “terminated” and forced to return to square one of the competition.
There is no indication that Philips’ entry was disqualified, however.
Scientists who developed rival bulbs were outraged when they heard that the department allowed Philips to move forward.
“We treated the standards as Gospel: you had to have 900 lumens, you had to have the right color, the right temperature, the right (light distribution),” said one engineer who worked on the Lighting Sciences Group’s L Prize design.
“We went through revision after revision because if you change the (brightness), the color could be wrong and we’d start over. If we had known we could have fudged the (brightness) then everything else becomes easy,” the engineer said.
In 2009, when other lighting companies were still at the design phase of the process, Philips submitted a 2,000-bulb sample to the department. The quick submission intimidated many others vying for the L Prize, according to multiple industry insiders.
“Not once did the DOE ever let anyone know about the testing results; there was no transparency,” another lighting expert said. “If they had made it known in 2010 that Philips didn’t pass the test, then other competitors would have proceeded forward. The inference was that they passed.”
The department closed the competition and awarded Philips the $10 million prize in August 2011.
The brightness test was not the only requirement that Philips may not have reached. Department notes also indicate that reviewers changed the light distribution criteria to Philips’ favor.
“Testing and modeling of prototype production lamps show the luminous intensity distribution falling below 10 percent from the mean near 150 degrees,” the report said. “However, the TSC finds the use of the 0-135 degree zone acceptable … this is different than the 0-150 zone specified.”
“The department cannot just change the rules on how they are going to test, especially if they don’t tell other competitors about the rule change,” said a second lighting insider. “Only Philips benefited from the criteria change.”
The contest has been marred by several controversies since it opened in 2008.
A House Appropriations Committee report issued in June slammed the department for announcing the $10 million prize without prior approval from Congress.
“The Committee strongly opposes the Department announcing funding opportunities when those funds have not yet been made available by Congress,” the report said. “In the case of the L Prize, the Department risks damaging its credibility.”
The warning was enough to worry higher-ups at Philips, which spent nearly $1.8 million lobbying Congress to fund the program.
The bulb’s $50 price tag also produced sticker shock among industry insiders. It is about double the cost of existing LED bulbs and about fifty times higher than the 60-watt incandescent bulb it was designed to replace.
“I’m impressed with the technology, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who’s not,” the former LSG engineer said. “But we were going for a $22 bulb, forget rebates, and Philips missed it by a mile.”
The L Prize winner is expected to last 25,000 hours and save consumers $160 over the lifetime of the bulb compared to 60-watt incandescent bulbs, which were outlawed by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA).
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said the competition helped move LED technology forward by providing companies with incentives to make energy efficient bulbs.
“The idea of that light bulb contest was to provide for a goal going further down to get a light bulb that eventually, Americans can afford,” he told Congress in March.
The former LSG executive is not convinced.
“Letting (the bulb) come out that expensive, I think it set the market back … people are looking for a return on investment and this just tells them they can’t afford any LED bulbs,” he said. “I can’t blame the U.S. citizens for saying, ‘my God, the government is wasting our money.’”
In March, DOE opened the second round of the L Prize competition, which will aim to replace the existing halogen floodlight.
And there is more...
Another angle, from a comment originally by Philip Premysler on Triple Pundit, since updated by him.
It includes relevant documentation links (author's own emphasis in capital letters as well as my bold text highlights):
There are greater troubling issues beyond the price.
The problem is that the L-Prize contest which was supposed to foster U.S. green technology competitiveness was RIGGED.
As a foreign based (headquartered) corporation Philips was excluded from eligibility according to the law that established the L-Prize, in particular public law 110-140 section 655(f)(1).
Under U.S. federal law the term “a primary place of business” used in the statute refers to the single headquarters location, which in the case of Philips is Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Philips, of course, would have known that they were ineligible, so they put out PR flak alleging that the bulb was the result of a global effort. The truth, as evidenced in Philips patent on the bulb, is otherwise.
See Philips L-Bulb Patent.
The bulb was developed in the Netherlands: The patent application which was, originally filed in Europe in 2008, but published in the U.S. two months after the Philips executive made his misrepresentations, lists only Dutch inventors, no U.S. inventors and assignes the patent to the Dutch Philips entity, not to a U.S. entity.
When this issue arose after the announcement of Philips as the L-Prize "winner",
the CEO of Philips Lighting North America Zia Eftekhar went on record falsely stating that the L-Prize bulb was "conceived" and had its "origins" in the U.S.
See EE Times article
[Quoting the article:
"But what about the development of the bulb, and where will it be manufactured? Zia Eftekhar, CEO of Philips Lighting North America, wanted to set the record straight:
He told me the L Prize bulb “..was conceived, designed, and will be manufactured in the United States.... He repeated this for emphasis: “The origins and development of this product, as well as its future manufacturing are all in the United States."]
These were falsehoods.
In fact Philips' L-Prize entry was invented by three dutch inventors and assigned to Philips of the Netherlands. [As from patent document previously mentioned]
Philips also spent $1.79 Million lobbying for appropriation for the L-PRIZE,
(as referenced, including from Senate Office Of Public Records, Lobbying Disclosure Forms).
Moreover, "A House Appropriations Committee report issued in June slammed the department for announcing the $10 million prize without prior approval from Congress." (Washington Beacon article by Bill McMorris)
The L-Prize entry also failed to meet key technical requirements of the contest. The Philips entry does not meet the stated uniformity requirement of the contest. This is admitted in a document [in its review comments] obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, see http://tinyurl.com/43ECMQM
[alt link to the document source here, easier magnifiable document copy here (click on it to enlarge)].
The curt justification asserted in that document based on comparing uniformity to a standard incandescent lamp is factually (quantifiably) false. The putative L-Prize winner is actually less uniform.
The Philips entry also failed to produce the required amount of light.
In one test 62 out of 100 bulbs failed (see the above linked document).
Whether the commercialized version will consistently produce the required amount of light is an open question [ed- unlikely given that the commercial version is not as good see above]. HOWEVER the stated procedure for the contest was that if the entry failed a required test, the entry would fail.
What happened is that Philips wanted prematurely to claim the prize
(as in Reason.com article) and the Department of Energy did not want to follow the rules and fail them, rather they embarked on RIGGING the contest. They kept the failure secret and proceeded with other tests.
[ed- more on the testing debacle below, also see the comments below to this post]
The result is that a bulb developed by Dutch inventors, built with some (possibly most) of its parts made in Shenzhen China (see http://www.dailytech.com/Philips..) has been given a great initial advantage which may allow it to dominate U.S. competitors, even though the contest is RIGGED.
We may wind up with Dutch citizens enjoying social welfare benefits such as vacations for the unemployed, supported by Chinese workers working 12 hours a day and American consumers squeezed by $50 light bulb prices whether they pay that amount at the check out counter or indirectly pay for subsidies through their electric bill [ed- including the currently planned taxpayer subsidies passed on to stores for price reductions at point of sale].
Update:
Philip Premysler's comments regarding the dubious testing were perhaps not as clear as they could have been - and the point was understandably made, in a comment below,
that the bulb after all was passed in all respects by the prize testing committee.
But in looking at the Test Review Comments themselves on the right hand side of the document (click on it to enlarge - or see copy below), the discrepancies start to show up.
While the bulb obviously passes the tests (or of course the prize could not be awarded!), it therefore does so with a lot of provisos, such that Philips own prototype testing are accepted when prize testing lab results show otherwise, and Philips promises about "criterions will be met in production lamp" are also accepted.
Notice also that prize testing lab names whose results conflict are rubbed out (at least 2 labs involved, possibly run by the DOE, judging by the article below). Why not test results of publicly named labs, in a publicly awarded prize with public money?
As seen in other parts of the assessment the testing by a certain PNNL is not rubbed out. (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is one of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories).
In one part, additional to the other criticism mentioned: "Testing conducted by PNNL with a wide variety of dimmers showed several issues with the submitted lamps".
The mentioned test review document copy
(obtained under Freedom of Information legislation)
The US Dept of Energy official site (lightingprize.org) - has a lot more about the evaluation procedure - including their video about the bulb testing:
The just released (April 2012) stress test report follows below.
Alternative link to this PDF document.
As seen, the lab involved was the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, as mentioned above.
Some recent relevant comments on different posts relating to the testing, extra highlighting (capital letters in original) and direct linking added:
To address the points above as to whether the contest was rigged. If the L-Prize bulb clearly FAILED a technical test where there is a clear cut pass or fail outcome that any freshman engineering student can judge, but the technical review committee writes in PASS and explains, in SECRET, without publishing a rules update, that they are lowering the standard so that they can write in PASS, this is clear cut CORRUPTION.
The technical review committee sought to justify secretly altering the uniformity standard stating
“..however, independent data verifies that this distribution is actually much more uniform than a standard incandescent lamp …“
While there can be no justification for secretly lowering the standard to rigg the contest, astoundingly (or not) this statement is false.
Calculating the standard deviation for the L-Prize bulb tested by the DoE and a standard incandescent lamp, using data provided by the Department of Energy shows that L-Prize lamp tested by the DoE was actually less uniform.
See Light Distribution Analysis (alt link)
The production version of the L-Prize (which by the way appears to be a Chinese product) also does not meet the published L-Prize uniformity criteria of +/-10% of average in the zone 0 to 150 degrees.
See data on page 41 of usa.lighting.philips.com document
Also see: Lab plots of light distribution of Philips bulb (alt link)
The stated procedure for the contest was that if the entry failed a required test the entry would fail.
See flowchart on page 15 of L-Prize competition rules.
Southern California Edison (SCE) which was involved in field testing Philips L-Prize entry, decided to lab test 16 of the bulbs.
It turns out 1 of the 16 exhibited a failure mode in which the light turned red by the time it had 1502 hours of run time. This early failure casts doubt on the 20,000 hour (with 95% confidence) lifetime touted by the Department of Energy.
See link on (Emerging Technologies Coordinating Council) web page http://www.etcc-ca.com/component/content/article/48-Commercial/3044-l-prize-lab-evaluation which has link to report
Quoting from the mentioned Emerging Technologies Coordinating Council (ETCC)webpage
This independent lab assessment was initiated in support of both SCE’s L Prize field testing efforts, as well as its energy efficiency incentive/rebate programs.
SCE’s lab testing capabilities present an enormous resource in understanding and developing confidence in the performance of these units. A winning product stands to undergo considerable mileage in terms of usage/acceptance across the United States. As leaders in energy efficiency, it is important that California utilities stay active in monitoring/assessing such technologies.
Regarding the SCE report about the bulb (long pdf document), from the summary:
The technology shows promise in terms of meeting the efficiency and performance criteria set forth in the L Prize.
However, to better assess feasible implementation into incentive
programs, more investigation is recommended in three key areas:
- Lifetime Testing
o The variation of savings realized with these products throughout their lifetime is not well understood at this point.
Long lifetimes are one of the significant advantages of SSL technology, and should be better understood with this product application.
- Dimming capabilities/issues
o It is not currently known how these products perform when used with other dimmers.
o Their observed inability to toggle off with the selected ELV dimmer presents a large barrier, which needs to be overcome for successful implementation.
(When the ON/OFF function was toggled on the dimmer paired with this product, the product was not able to shut off. It encountered visible flickering at a dimly lit state in the OFF position.)
o The issue of green color shift at low dimming is a barrier to investigate/address for successful implementation
- Thermal effects on product performance
o These lamps are specified to use in dry locations, and not within totally enclosed fixtures. The effects of ambient temperatures/humidities on this technology’s performance and lifetime are not well understood at this point.
The conditions these lamps were subjected to in this lab assessment are within a narrow range, when taking into consideration the various climate zones/applications these general-purpose devices may see.
These key areas represent significant barriers,
to acceptance of this technology when compared with baseline CFLs and incandescents.
Further efforts are recommended to fully understand the benefits of SSL technology in this application, and ensure that product utility is not significantly impacted when encouraging customers to purchase products that are more efficient.
It is recommended that the results of the DOE’s evaluation of the first entry to the “60 Watt incandescent” category be closely monitored;
further understanding of this technology may be achieved through more collaboration with DOE testing, as DOE efforts are initiated/completed.
Regarding this bulb,
dimming is also criticized along with other issues in the committee technical review, above.
Regarding LED technology in general,
as this report also takes up, there are indeed several questionable issues relating to lifespan, enduring brightness, ambient temperature effects etc - apart from the light quality itself:
See the Ceolas website referenced rundown.
The "save energy/money in usage" push should not ignore such factors,
or for that matter the life cycle environmental impact, in terms of components in manufacture (more), energy/emissions in production and (overseas) transport, and environmental dumping when not recycled.
Henk Tennekes is an aeronautical engineer. From 1965 to 1977 he was a professor of Aerospace Engineering at Penn State. He is co-author of A First Course in Turbulence (MIT Press, 1972 – still in print) and author of The Simple Science of Flight, recently (2009) released revised and expanded. 
Joost van Kasteren [
There has been so much store set by the quality of the L prize lamp that I was very keen to get one as it seems unlikely we will get them in the UK anytime soon. The first thing that surprised me was the extent of packaging for what is supposed to be an environmentally friendly product.
