At the
Lightfar International tradeshow, Royal Philips Electronics unveiled its 12
watt EnduraLED light bulb it claims is the first LED replacement for a 60 watt
incandescent light bulb.
It marks,
said Rudy Provoost, CEO of Philips Lighting, an important breakthrough in the
use of LED lighting technology in everyday applications.
To create
the new alterative to the light bulb, Provoost said Philips researchers in The
Netherlands created a new remote phosphorous technology and light distribution
design, LUXEON LEDs were integrated from Philips Lumileds in San Jose, Ca., and
electronics for the bulb were built at Philips Color Kinetics in Burlington, MA
and Philips Lighting Electronics in Rosemont, IL. From there, the bulbs were
then sent to the Philips Quality Assurance team in Shanghai to be rigorously
tested for quality and safety standards.
"Consumers
will now have an LED alternative to the most commonly used incandescent bulb,
which will deliver up to 80% energy savings and last 25 times longer than its
century-old predecessor."
The
significance of developing an LED equivalent to the 60 watt has been recognized
by many international organizations, including the U.S. Department of Energy
(DoE), who created the L-prize competition to spur development of this highly
sought after innovation.
According to
Provoost, Philips' entry was the first, and to date remains the only submission
for the L-Prize, which was used as the basis for the 12 watt EnduraLED.
Exceeding the Energy Star specifications for a 60 watt bulb, the EnduraLED uses
only 12 watts of power while delivering an industry benchmark of 806 lumens.
If Philips
is successful in marketing its new alternative to the incandescent, it has a
very good chance of grabbing a lion's share of the market domestic incandescent
light bulbs at least in the U.S. Every year more than 425 million 60-watt
incandescent light bulbs are sold in the United States, representing
approximately 50% of the domestic incandescent light bulb market.
According to
calculations by Philips, this LED replacement has the potential to save 32.6
terawatt-hours of electricity in one year, enough to power the lights of 16.7
million U.S. households or 14.4% of the total number of households in the
entire US. It would also eliminate the generation 5.3 million metric tons of
carbon emissions annually.
The
EnduraLED works with standard dimmers, further simplifying use. It has rated
life of 25,000 hours, as opposed to a standard 60 watt incandescent bulb which
is rated at about 1,000 hours.
This means
that over the course of the LED life, replacing a 60 watt standard bulb could
save a business or household $120 per lamp. It will be available in the U.S. in
the fourth quarter of 2010, well ahead of U.S. legislation requiring the use of
more energy efficient lighting which commences in 2012. The retail price of
this EnduraLED has not yet been finalized.
(This means that over the course of the LED life, replacing a 60 watt standard bulb could save a business or household $120 per lamp).
I am not able to understand how this has been calculated?
Have they included the interest on the money required to buy the LED bulbs for the time it can start monetary benefit over standard 60 watt bulb? For example:
Cost of LED Bulb - Cost of Standard 60 Watt incandescent bulb - Energy saved per year = 0
I understand interest rate is rather high in India, as opposed to 1-2% per annum currently in the US. What's the inflation rate in India? High interest rate and low inflation rate favor the rich.
Cost of Standard Incandescent Bulb = Rs. 10 (approx $0.2)
Cost to replace 200 Incandescent Bulbs in a Restaurant = Rs. 200,000 (approx $ 4000)
If a bulb is lit for 8 hours per day the and the unit price of electricity is Rs. 5 per unit then energy cost per day by a standard 60 wattt incandescent bulb = 5*240 / 1000 = Rs. 1.2
So for 200 bulbs per day = 1.2 * 200 = Rs 240 (approx $5)
Cost of Energy consumed by 12 watt LED alternative bulb = 5*96 / 1000 = Rs. 0.48
So for 200 LED bulbs per day energy cost = 0.48 * 200 = Rs 96
Thus
Savings through the 200 LED bulbs per day = 240 - 96 = Rs. 144
Cost of Energy saved per year = 52,560 (approx $11,00)
Say maintenance cost per year on 200 incandescent bulbs = Rs. 5000
Then Cost for SSL investment saved per year = 57,560
In this case, usually the SSL manufacturers says that you will start reaping out benefit from your investment in SSL after years = 200,000/57,560 = approx 3.5 years
But in real it should be
If the interest rate per year is 20% P.A (as per India) then the investment cost = approx 300,000
So to start getting benefit out of your investment in SSL you require around approx 5 years
The Indian method for calculating inflation, the Wholesale Price Index, is different from the rest of world. Each week, the wholesale price of a set of 435 goods is calculated by the Indian government. Since these are wholesale prices, the actual prices paid by consumers are far higher.
There you go. high inflation rate, high interest rate. That makes life difficult for the poor. They don't have any savings but any savings they have are wiped out by inflation while for their small savings they don't get much interest.
In that context, SSL still makes sense, because the cost of electricity and labor and light bulbs will keep increasing.
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