The company receives $10 million in cash (more on this below), along with participation in Federal procurement contracts and energy-efficiency programs, which could prove to be even more valuable over the longer term.

But some questions and issues remain. The jury is still out on whether the L Prize can be considered a success, or a worthwhile use of taxpayers’ money.

Since inception, the L Prize attracted only one entrant – Philips – which has now been declared the winner. Two other teams declared their intent to participate but have not (to the best of our knowledge) submitted their samples for testing.

When the L Prize was first conceived, one can imagine that its proponents were hoping for a head-to-head race for the line, with multiple participants each spurring the others to greater achievements, and creating a positive knock-on effect for the whole LED industry.

Instead, the world’s largest lighting company has been the only entrant. While it’s not necessarily the DOE’s fault that only one company entered, was there ever much chance that the winner would come from outside of a very small list of major companies? And has the competition created the type of positive impetus to justify the investment of $10 million?

Another point is that the 60W-replacement category was one of three originally put forward. The PAR38-replacement category has been put on hold (or shelved – we wait to find out), while the 21st Century Lamp category was never defined beyond a headline 150-lm/W number.

Earlier this week, Cree said it had built a prototype lamp that had surpassed this 150-lm/W figure. And GE recently talked about the likely commercial availability of its dimmable 75W- and 100W-replacement lamps, which “are expected to arrive on store shelves in late 2012” – in other words, at least one year from now. Were the timings of these announcements a coincidence, given that GE and Cree were one of the teams that said they intended to participate in the L Prize?

It’s also interesting to note that the L Prize announcement comes hot on the heels of the House vote that rejected an attempt to repeal lamp-related legislation contained within the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA). The L Prize is mandated by EISA.

The most important point concerns pricing and availability of the lamps. The Philips lamps were evaluated for various performance characteristics, and thoroughly field-tested. So far, so good. But these were a set of 2000 lamps that were lovingly hand-crafted, and were not in any sense the product of a high-volume manufacturing line.

The L Prize requirements say that “the intent of the L Prize is for products to be available on a mass-production basis in a competitive commercial market… Entrants must provide evidence that they are fully prepared to begin production at a capacity which exceeds 250,000 units per year for the first year of production and increased production in subsequent years.” Of course, this is for lamps meeting or exceeding the L prize performance parameters. Philips has said that its lamp “could arrive in stores as soon as early 2012.”

Target retail prices – which are prices to the consumer or end-user, after potential utility or retailer incentives are applied – were also listed in the L Prize document, but these were definitely targets rather than requirements. For 60W-replacement lamps, the target prices are $22 in the first year of production, $15 in year 2 and $8 in year 3.

To recap, as far as the $10 million prize is concerned, there are no strict timescales for when Philips has to start selling its L Prize lamp, and no mandatory price points that must be achieved. However, Philips’ manufacturing plan was clearly deemed acceptable – and since it’s Philips, the chances are that they will deliver. Otherwise, I guess DOE will just ask for its money back.

So what about the non-cash benefits of winning the L Prize? Multiple qualifiers from each prize category (if there are any others) may be selected to participate in promotional activities and incentives with various energy-efficiency programs (EEPs). If there are, eventually, multiple qualifiers, then competition will force these companies to push their lamp prices down. But what about the Federal procurement contracts, where Philips as the outright L Prize winner will – apparently – enjoy a monopoly? *

Back to the $10 million prize…the L Prize document says that “EISA authorizes cash prizes for the first successful entrant in each prize category. Cash prizes will be based on the availability of funding from future appropriations and private funding contributions as authorized by the EISA.” But a comment from “lightguy us” on our recent article said that “the budget bill passed yesterday by the US congress cut all the funding for enforcement of energy-standard regulations.” So perhaps Philips is not going to receive $10 million after all.

In conclusion, we look forward to hearing more details surrounding the issues raised in this article, perhaps demonstrating how the L Prize will benefit not just Philips but the rest of the SSL industry in the US. Your comments are very welcome (and can be made anonymously) - use the Post a COmment button below.

(*The L Prize document states: In addition to cash prizes, the L Prize authorization provides that the Secretary of Energy is to consult with the Administrator of General Services to develop federal purchase guidelines with the goal of conducting a Federal procurement of SSL products from the winner under the 60-watt incandescent and PAR 38 halogen categories.)

While the show floor was brimming with LED-based luminaires and lamps, Lightfair International (LFI) sessions demonstrated that skepticism still lurks over solid-state lighting (SSL). OLEDs were also highlighted on the show floor, although an expert panel focused more on the roadblocks that limit the technology to decorative lighting for now.

There were numerous LED-centric sessions at LFI, but one entitled “LED performance: Myths and facts – an LED industry report card” served to remind that SSL is a relatively new technology. Indeed presenter John Curran of consulting firm LED Transformations took a skeptical approach in his session that seemed targeted at newcomers to SSL. And clearly despite the prevalence of LED technology at LFI, the technology is still new to some lighting designers, architects, building owners, and municipalities.

Component and luminaire life

Curran described known issues with LEDs in lighting such as component life and the need for thermal management. He presented a case study detailing LEDs that maintained L70 (70% of initial brightness) for 148,000 hours when the junction temperature was maintained at 55°C whereas the useful life dropped to 67,000 hours at 85°C.

Philips 75W-equivalent LED lamp

Not all of Curran’s comments were skeptical. He told the audience that if you buy LED products from a reputable manufacturer that other components would likely fail before the LEDs. But Curran also warned the crowd about the realities of the market discussing retrofit lamps and the consumer market. He quipped that if he bought a $40 LED bulb, “I’m going to keep the receipt for a while.” His actual point was that residential customers are far more upfront-cost conscious than commercial customers, and residential customers look for much faster payback periods preferably inside one year. That could make residential a tough market to crack.

OLED lighting potential

While LEDs have become the workhorse star of LFI, OLEDs remain the technology of untapped potential. The “Creating a vision for OLED lighting session” allowed proponents to once again discuss that potential. The session featured Acuity Brand executives Jeannine Fisher and Peter Ngai, lighting designer Patricia Glasow, James Brodrick from the US Department of Energy (DOE), and consultant Paul Burrows of Reata Research.

Acuity Kindred OLED luminaire

Acuity clearly intended to use the panel to promote its investment in OLED technology and the introduction of the Kindred and Revel OLED fixtures at LFI. Burrow did the heavy lifting in the session providing a relatively complete explanation of how OLEDs work.

Burrows acknowledged the Acuity OLED announcements saying “Before today, there was no real OLED lighting product on the market.” What he didn’t say was that Acuity won’t ship the OLED products until next year and they are likely to be below the 100-lm/W efficacy threshold that most experts believe OLEDs must reach to serve in mainstream lighting. Acuity hasn’t released full specs for the OLED fixtures, but in the OLED session Fisher argued, “60 lm/W is the entry point for being able to mainstream OLED lighting.”

Burrows was probably more candid than Acuity would have preferred in his other remarks. He said that you can easily make decorative OLED fixtures today, “but that won’t save energy.” His point was that OLEDs will have to replace ambient and task lighting for there to be a compelling energy-efficiency story.

Panel efficiency research

In his role at the DOE, Brodrick is squarely focused on energy efficiency. And he said that efficient lighting needs to address “panels rather than pixels” – thus his continued interest in OLEDs as a planar source. Indeed OLED projects won more than $4.8 million of the $14.8 million in R&D funds recently awarded by the DOE.

Burrows did note several potential OLED advantages. He said that OLEDs need simpler driver electronics than do LEDs, and with OLEDs the device efficiency is the luminaire efficiency. He also said that OLEDs will better deliver warm white light.

Still Burrows noted numerous roadblocks. He said today only 20% of the light escapes an OLED source without out coupling. There are also dispersion-pattern and substrate issues. All of the roadblocks can be overcome but for now manufacturing costs that are too high. He said cost today is $50 per square meter and that needs to drop to $20 or less.

Glasow chose to focus purely on the aesthetic advantages that OLEDs offer. She noted that the technology offers better RGB color mixing than LEDs. And she said, “OLEDs let you get rid of those heat sinks.” But clearly energy efficiency and cost will gate wider deployment, and we will wait yet another LFI cycle or more to witness clearance of those hurdles.

Philips LED lamp: on

Samples of the Philips 10-watt LED lamp were submitted in 2009 and have completed 18 months of field, lab and product testing. Performance requirements included an output in excess of 900 lm, and a useful lifetime of more than 25,000 hours.

Philips LED lamp: off

Philips also says that the lamp “could arrive in stores as soon as early 2012.”

A more in-depth version of this story will be posted on the LEDs Magazine website very shortly.