IAEEL newsletter 3-4/97
Future Bulb Competition Reissued
Future Bulb Competition Reissued
The International Energy Agency (IEA) technology procurement competition for a replacement incandescent lamp, popularly referred to as the ³future bulb² competition did not receive any bids that met the criteria specified. Consequently, a call for bids has been reissued, and manufacturers now have until December 1998 to prepare them.
The IEA technology procurement competition was described in the IAEEL Newsletter 1/97. Four countries ‹ Finland, Netherlands, UK, and Sweden ‹ jointly issued a set of specifications for a more efficient substitute for the present incandescent GLS (or A-line) lamp. In short, the specifications call for a lamp that is about 30 percent more efficient than present incandescents and that lasts about three times as long. A European four-country buyer group with about 50 members has stated its interest in purchasing more than 6 million lamps.
Bids were due in September 1997. At Right Light 4 in Copenhagen last November, the group issued a statement that the call for bids would be reissued.
³We have strong reasons to believe that there are a number of new developments which might lead to successful bids over a slightly longer time scale than originally requested², says project manager Paul Davidson, at the Building Research Establishment in the UK.
But even if the present round ends successfully, it will take almost three years before the lamp could reach the market. With bids due in December 1998, the process of prototype evaluation and testing will take another year. ²After that, manufacturers are likely to need a year to build up full-scale production capacity², says Davidson. This means that if everything goes as the IEA group hopes, the new lamps will, nevertheless, not reach market until the end of year 2000.
For more info, check out:
http://www.stem.se/IEAprocure
Contact: Paul Davidson, BRE
Tel: +44 1923 66 44 37
Fax: +44 1923 66 40 97
E-mail: davidsonp@bre.co.uk