Philips Get Record Profits from Expensive Light Bulb Sales and Subsidies

Philips lighting profits just announced:
"We must be doing something right" in the words of Philips CEO Frans van Houten.
Sure, Frans - your company is doing the right thing, making sure that the cheap popular competition gets banned and that worldwide switchover subsidies are continued ;-)

ABC news:
Philips Winning Market Share in Lighting

Bloomberg:
Philips Profit Beats Estimates as Revamp Boosts Lighting (includes video interview)

...and similar from other news sources 21-22 October

Osram, the world's second largest light bulb maker are hardly unhappy either:
"Osram AG, the German lightbulb maker spun off by Siemens in July, gained as much as 3 percent, the most in two months, to 37 euros".


Main news extracts:

Chief Executive Officer Frans Van Houten is expanding more profitable businesses such as LED lighting....demand for LED lighting bulbs boosted profitability....earnings rose 33 percent to 634 million euros ($867 million)....the stock gained as much as 5.2 percent...

While presenting third quarter earnings on a conference call Monday, Frans van Houten did not give a specific figure on the company's global market share. But the report showed LED lighting sales grew by 33 percent from a year ago in the three months through September. They accounted for 30 percent of the 2.08 billion euros ($2.85 billion) in lighting sales Philips had in the quarter....the strong LED sales and lower restructuring charges led to a 140 million euro profit, from a 14 million loss in the same period a year ago...
"We must be doing something right" he said.

"non-sense and complexity?"


 

A Dutch View: "The Unholy Alliance between Philips and the Greens"

Updated August 1

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)

The below article post has this source.


About the authors

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.





 

More Dim Issues with Philips new LED Bulb

 
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)

L Prize (Fail!)
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.

Comment

The mentioned Earthled dissection of the bulb is also on the post "(S)tripping the Light Fantastic", with extensive commenting.

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!

Dimming and other problems were as said also highlighted in the official committee test review and designated test lab reports on
“All about the new Philips LED Bulb, and how it won the L-Prize”

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?

No! Never! ;-)
 

US Government LED Prize: Certain test reports not released...

 
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)."

 

The L Prize: Official Version of the Testing Procedure

 
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.

Philips LED Bulb Prize Technical Review Document Copy

 
Post updated April 28

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.
 

Update: More Questions about the Quality of the Philips LED bulb, and its Prize Award

 

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.

 

More on Philips lobbying:for Ban (incandescent) and for Prize (LED)!

 




"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].

 

More Fun with Philips: The Philips 95 Watt California Bulb

Update 5 Sep 2012:
Actually, while manufacturers may have profited from regulations they helped to bring about, in the case of the 95 Watt bulbs (similarly 71,57,38 Watt ones) they were just following petty regulations applying from 2008, set down by the California government in reducing bulb wattage (and brightness) a little bit.
For more, see new post of September 4 2012.

#     #     #

Quite a lot about Philips recently here...
their L-Prize LED, their en.lighten campaign involvement with the UN and World Bank, their Phoebus cartel participation, and so on.

They launched a "Philips California bulb" (California approved) as on Bulbs.com of 95W which supposedly circumvents California regulations but really doesn't...

"A former 100-watt light bulb manufactured on or after January 1, 2011 and sold in California will have to use 72 watts or less", California Gov light bulb regulation website, with still stricter standards in 2012.

The Philips California Bulb


Perhaps it just shows the general confusion about light bulb standards...
 

All about the new Philips LED Bulb, and how it won the L-Prize

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.
 

Philips, Osram, the UN, World Bank and EU: How we will en.lighten the World in 2012

Extensively edited August 8


How manufacturers,
who of course themselves could voluntarily choose to stop making the cheap unprofitable incandescents they keep saying are "bad for the planet",
instead seek to invoke international cooperation in replacements and regulations, the real aim being to cut down any competition from local upstarts who might want to make the simple popular and locally more easily made incandescent bulbs

 
The United Nations (via UNEP) cooperation agreement with Philips and Osram, the en.lighten initiative which was agreed in 2009, is now set to "change the world" in 2012, having gradually built up funding to be able to launch a comprehensive worldwide lighting conversion programme.

The following looks at it with edited extracts from the Philips and Osram CEO presentation.



A  Global  Transition  to  Efficient  Lighting

 

by
Rudy Provoost, CEO of Philips Lighting
Martin Goetzeler, CEO of OSRAM
Darth Vader, CEO of Death Star
(there may or may not be an odd one out)

Private sector and the UN in partnership to en.lighten the world.

The UNEP en.lighten initiative was created as a partnership between UNEP, Philips Lighting and OSRAM, with support of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) [more on GEF follows].
The initiative addresses the challenge of accelerating global market transformation to environmentally sustainable lighting technologies by developing a global strategy in support of the gradual phase-out of inefficient lighting.

• the development of a global policy strategy to gradually eliminate inefficient and obsolete lighting products;
• the promotion of high performance and efficient lighting technologies in developing and emerging nations;
• the substitution of traditional fuel-based lighting with efficient alternatives.

The en.lighten initiative has created global taskforces where international experts from developing, emerging and developed countries and sectors are working on a global approach to phase out inefficient incandescent lamps.


Market forces are not sufficient to achieve the rapid transformation needed in the lighting market to respond to the climate change challenge.
Instead, a multi-stakeholder global partnership is required to support countries as they embark upon efficient lighting transformation programmes.

As two of the biggest lighting manufacturers in the world,
we have chosen to focus our efforts on transforming the lighting market in partnership with UNEP through its en.lighten initiative.
With its unparalleled global network, UNEP can provide leadership by inspiring and enabling nations to prioritise efficient lighting and reap the benefits of lowered energy costs.

An "Efficient Lighting Toolkit" for governments worldwide will be available in early 2012.
It will provide "comprehensive guidance on how to transform their markets to efficient lighting".

They also invite partners to participate - lots of saving consultancy schemes are offered, with an invitation to contact the en.lighten secretariat.

A footer confirms that "The en.lighten initiative is a partnership supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), OSRAM AG, Philips Lighting and the National Lighting Test Centre, China (NLTC)".

The National Lighting Test Centre, China (NLTC),
has over the years "built professional relationships with its wide range of international and domestic clients, providing them with tailor-made solutions for either purchase from or entrance into the Chinese lighting market."

The Global Environment Facility (GEF),
is yet another funding facility bailing out manufacturers who can't sell (or can't be bothered to market and sell) their expensive wares on the open market...
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) unites 182 member governments — in partnership with international institutions, civil society organizations (CSOs), and the private sector — to address global environmental issues.
Established in 1991, the GEF is today the largest funder of projects to improve the global environment.
The author Jeffrey Sachs in his book CommonWealth describes the World Bank association with the GEF in making it the world's largest environmental fund facility.
As seen from the above link it also involves the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and many other financing institutions.

The extensive activities of UNEP and the GEF, in spreading the New Lighting Gospel around the world with Philips and Osram, is further covered on the Ceolas website (http://ceolas.net/#unep and onwards).



Comment

So, a big pay-off to Philips and Osram from the World Bank to offload otherwise unwanted expensive patented fluorescent or LED bulbs on developing countries.

Somewhat (though only somewhat) tongue-in-cheek one might ask, why not ban cheap well known generic penicillin too - allowing the offloading of expensive patented less well known drugs on Africans and others?


Light bulb manufacturers have a long and dark history in seeking to avoid fair competition on open free markets, beginning with the Phoebus Cartel in the 1920's, continuing up to the present day lobbying for bans on patent expired unprofitable generic regular bulbs, and indeed now this subsidised product dumping.

See http://ceolas.net/#li1ax onwards with article references, documentation, and copies of official communications.


Any doubting casual observer can of course just ask themselves:

Why welcome "being able" to stop the manufacture of incandescents?
If it's "so great" to stop making incandescents, and make other light bulbs instead:
Why don't the manufacturers just stop it themselves then?

After all, the major light bulb manufacturers have a history of getting together and setting their own product-limiting manufacturing standards.

The mentioned Phoebus Cartel was all about setting a common 1000 hour lifespan standard, so that the manufacturers could sell more profitable (shorter lasting) bulbs on the world market they carved up between themselves.

1000 hours is still the regular incandescent "benchmark" lifespan standard.

So manufacturers could again cooperate, openly or not, on standards that eliminate the incandescents.
But, of course, they would again want to to make sure that noone else makes those bulbs, that would lose them sales and profits...

With the Phoebus cartel, the times were easier, with more readily controlled markets, and a special "1000 hour life committee" as discovered by recent referenced research, effectively oversaw both membership compliance and the blocking of outside manufacturers to market access.

How wonderful therefore, when naive politicians step into the breach, this time handing the major manufacturers the markets on a plate, by banning anyone else from making the cheap but relatively unprofitable bulbs:
Stopping small local outfits who might not be able to get the bigger profits from the more complex and harder to manufacture bulbs, but can still do good business on simple if less profitable bulb varieties.
Thereby the green rebound irony, of prohibiting simple cheap safe locally made locally transported products!.


The American side in the development of the 2007 US EISA legislation, was not least illustrated in the previously posted review of the 2011 eBook "I, Light Bulb: A Death Row Testimonial" by Leahy and Brandston, the latter directly involved in consultation and hearings:
Notice in particular the described GE and NEMA (National Electrical Manufacturers Association) involvement in the 2007 legislation.

As for the European 2009 EU legislation, the EU Ban Story also covers the European Lamp Companies Federation (ELC) and their openly admitted lobbying activities.

ELC Board: Philips Lighting: Mr Jan Denneman (President) Osram GmbH: Mr Wolfgang Gregor (Vice President) GE: Mr Tony Everett (Treasurer).

"What are our objectives?"
[To provide consumers with good lighting they want to buy? No...]
"To promote efficient lighting practice for the benefit of the global environment, human comfort and the health and safety of consumers.
To monitor, advise and co-operate with legislative bodies in developing European Directives and Regulations of relevance to the European lamp industry.
To act as the key discussion partner for the European Union (EU)

Philips is the worlds largest lighting manufacturer.
Osram is the second largest.
Both are headquartered in Europe.

How they have participated not just in cartel market rigging, but have also benefited from a direct involvement in the specifications set by the EU Commission Ecodesign division, is also covered via the above link.
EU specifications, unlike North American or Australian counterparts, also have direct CFL purchase inducements, such as the immediate 2009 ban of all non-clear incandescents (including halogens) on the basis that "people can buy the CFLs instead".

Scottish lighting designer Kevan Shaw is actively involved as a "stakeholder" in EU regulations. As he says, and which subsequently is being covered in the media, the EU is now likely to ban low voltage halogens too.

Philips have just reported falling light bulb profits. So perhaps more "help" for them is on the way.
Further reading: EU: "The Unholy Alliance between Philips and the Greens" by a Dutch scientist and a Dutch research journalist.
USA: Philips lobbying federally and for LED Prize


Other sources on lobbying have come to light in recent years...

Susanne Hammarström of Sweden was head of the Brussels based PR agency Diplomat-PR engaged in the lobbying on behalf of the light bulb manufacturers.
Translated from the largest Swedish business paper, Dagens Industri:

"The ban would never have happened, without the large and extensive lobby campaign, in all member countries, as well as towards The European Commission and the media", Susanne Hammarström says.
She believes that a voluntary switchover to energy saving lamps would have been the preferred policy, without the systematic lobbying work.

See the industry policy section of the 14 point rundown linked below.



How Regulations are Wrongly Justified
14 points, referenced:
Includes why the overall society savings aren't there, and even if they were, why alternative policies are better, including alternative policies that target light bulbs.