Inside Innovation: Philips breaks 200 lumens per watt barrier

November 19, 2013


Lumens per watt refers to the energy efficiency of lighting: how much light you actually get for each watt of electricity used. By creating the world’s most efficient LED lamp at 200 lumens per watt (lm/W), Philips has taken energy-efficient lighting to a whole new level. The new TLED prototype, designed to replace fluorescent tube lighting, uses only half the energy of the most efficient ones currently on the market.
Read the Inside Innovation backgrounder for all the details.

“The new prototype lamp marks the first time that lighting engineers have been able to reach 200 lm/W efficiency in a real-life lamp without compromising on light quality.”
Rifat Hikmet, principal scientist



The lamp produces the warm white light that people prefer. As an added bonus, because the new LEDs generate less heat they do not need bulky heat sinks to keep cool – resulting in greater design freedom, less material usage and lower production costs.



”This innovation represents a new approach to creating high quality white light. It’s a combination of red and blue LEDs, with part of the blue light converted to green using phosphor. Blue, green and red light is then combined to create high quality white light.”
Coen Liedenbaum, innovation manager


Potential energy savings
Substantial energy savings will be possible with the new energy-efficient LED tube lighting. In the US alone, for example, fluorescent lights consume around 200 terawatt hours of electricity annually. If these lights were all replaced with 200 lm/W LEDs, the US would use around 100 terawatt hours less energy. This equates to an annual saving of more than $12 billion and 60 million metric tons less CO2 being released into the atmosphere, equivalent to the emissions of around 17 coal-fired power plants, 12 million passenger vehicles, or 140 million barrels of oil consumed.

Lumens per watt of the Philips prototype 200 lm/w TLED versus other light sources:

The 200 lm/W tube LED lamp is expected to hit the market in 2015, and will ultimately be used in a wide range of applications for the home and retail, as well as professional services. Early derivatives are already being incorporated into our commercial LED products.


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