Philips develops ‘world’s most efficient’ LED bulb for Dubai rollout

Announced at the Water, Energy, Technology and Environment Exhibition (WETEX) in Dubai on Wednesday (5 October), the “Dubai Lamp initiative” will see two million of the world’s first commercially available 200 lumen-per-watt LED lamps installed across the city over the next 12 months.

The initiative, which will increase the rollout to 10 million lamps by 2021, is expected to reduce household and enterprise energy use by up to 90%. Philips could eventually replace around 80% of the conventional bulbs in the city with the Dubai lamps – which can last up to 15 years longer.

Philips Lighting’s chief executive Eric Rondolat said: “This focused and result-driven partnership with Dubai Municipality is a prime example of how a public-private partnership can deliver innovation that is practical and cost-effective for both consumer and professional markets while helping to combat the serious issue of climate change.

“Over the past three years we have worked with the Municipality to transform municipal buildings with energy efficient LED lighting. This latest initiative is a natural next step which will help to set a new benchmark in energy efficiency and sustainable development in Dubai.”

The Dubai Lamp is a “family” of four LED bulb ranges that offers a 2W E27 Bulb to replace 40W incandescent lamp, a 3W E27 Bulb to replace 60W incandescent lamp and a 1W E14 Candle to replace 25W incandescent lamp.

Philip’s development of the Dubai Lamp has defied predictions from the US Department of Energy, which originally claimed that the 200 lumen-per-watt threshold wouldn’t be passed until 2025.

The rollout will commence after an “extensive” trialling period during the development phase highlighted the potential energy savings for the Dubai Municipality. With the city aiming to become the “world’s most sustainable city”, Philips believes that the rollout will support Dubai’s 30% energy consumption reduction target for 2030.

Lighting the way

While no news has been released in regards to a European rollout of the bulb, the Dubai initiative forms part of Philips’ pledge to sell more than two billion LED lights by 2020 as part of a wider goal to become carbon neutral in its global operations.

If Dubai’s LED retrofit was reflected and adopted across the globe, electricity consumption for lighting would be reduced by more than half (52%), with 735 million tons of CO2 emissions avoided each year.

The news comes off the back of two of the UKs biggest tomato growers reporting the benefits of transitioning to a Phillips horticultural LED system – with the first growth cycle using these lights resulting in significantly reduced energy consumption and increased yields for both growers.

Alex Baldwin & Matt Mace