US Department of Energy

In May 2008, the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced details of the Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize competition. The L Prize is the first government-sponsored technology competition designed to spur lighting producers to develop high quality, high efficiency solid-state lighting products to replace the common light bulb. The competition will award cash prizes, and may also lead to opportunities for federal purchasing agreements, utility programs, and other incentives for winning products.

The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007 authorizes DOE to establish the Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize competition. The legislation challenges industry to develop replacement technologies for the most commonly used and inefficient products, 60 W incandescent lamps and PAR 38 halogen lamps. The L Prize specifies technical requirements for these two competition categories. Lighting products meeting the competition requirements would use just 17% of the energy used by most incandescent lamps in use today. A future L Prize program announcement will call for developing a new “21st Century Lamp,” as authorized in the legislation.

The EISA legislation establishes basic requirements and prize amounts for each category. The legislation authorizes up to $20 million in cash prizes.^[27][28] On September 24, 2009 the DOE announced that Philips was the first to submit lamps in the category to replace the standard 60 W A-19 "Swan/Edison" light bulb