GE Bright From The Start™ Bulb Now ENERGY STAR® Qualified

Press release:

03 May 2012

GE Bright From The Start™ Bulb Now ENERGY STAR® Qualified

 

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EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio – May 3, 2012 – (NYSE:GE) —GE’s award-winning Energy Smart® Bright from the Start^TM bulb is the nation’s first hybrid CFL light bulb to receive ENERGY STAR® qualification. This innovative hybrid bulb combines the best features of an incandescent, CFL and halogen bulb in one. The result is an instant-on technology that uses 75 percent less energy than an incandescent bulb and lasts eight times longer.

“The ENERGY STAR qualification is just one more validation of how truly special this light bulb is,” says Jeff Patton, general manager of consumer marketing, GE Lighting. “It’s already been widely embraced by consumers and received top-notch award nods. We’re so pleased that this latest recognition now conveys this important energy-saving distinction.”

GE engineers carefully crafted this bulb to eliminate the delayed start associated with the CFL bulb. They discovered a solution by nestling an instantly bright halogen capsule inside the swirl of a compact fluorescent light bulb. The halogen element comes on instantly and turns off once the CFL comes to full brightness, thus preserving the energy efficiency of the bulb. It’s also housed in the incandescent-shaped shell consumers are used to and has an extremely low amount of mercury: 1 mg. CFLs typically contain 1.5 mg to 3.5 mg of mercury.

When comparing the 15-watt hybrid halogen-CFL with a light output of 800 lumens to the standard 60-watt incandescent with 840 lumens, consumers will see an energy savings of $39 over the life of the bulb (seven years at 3 hours of usage per day).

Available in both Soft White and GE Reveal^® styles, the GE Energy Smart Bright From The Start 15- and 20-watt bulbs are meant to replace 60- and 75-watt incandescent bulbs. Retailers set prices, but customers could expect to pay $5.99-$9.99 based on product line and wattage.

To find out just how much they can save by making the simple switch to this bulb, consumers can visit www.GELighting.com/Lighttransforms to calculate their savings.

About GE Lighting
GE Lighting invents with the vigor of its founder Thomas Edison to develop energy-efficient solutions that change the way people light their world in commercial, industrial, municipal and residential settings. The business employs over 17,000 people in more than 100 countries, and sells products under the Reveal^® and Energy Smart^® consumer brands, and Evolve™, GTx, Immersion™, Infusion™, Lumination^® and Tetra^® commercial brands, all trademarks of GE. General Electric (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter to build a world that works better. For more information, visitwww.gelighting.com.

Century-Old GE Bulbs Light Up 100th Anniversary Celebration of Nela Park

26 March 2012

Century-Old GE Bulbs Light Up 100th Anniversary Celebration of Nela Park

 

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EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio – March 26, 2012 – (NYSE:GE) — One hundred years ago—March 25, 1912 to be exact—executives and employees gathered at GE Lighting’s newly forming Nela Park campus to bury a hermetically sealed time capsule packed with a daily newspaper, pamphlets, pins, photos and some GE light bulbs representing available and emerging incandescent technologies of the era.

The collection of treasures inside the capsule and an accompanying lead box filled with additional mementos placed inside a cornerstone of Marketing Building #307 were intended to speak to future generations about the state of lighting technology and the transformational growth that GE was experiencing in 1912.

GE Lighting employees reminisce, look to future at unearthing of time capsuleHundreds of GE Lighting employees and retirees today gathered at the base of Building #307 for a real-time, once-in-a-lifetime history lesson. The time capsule was unearthed and its contents were carefully and lovingly removed and put on display before being moved to a secure temperature- and light-controlled space across the Nela Park campus, near GE’s current multi-million dollar LED reliability and testing labs and clean room.

In a remarkable testament to the craftsmanship and quality of GE products and solutions at work for customers then and now, one of the tungsten filament lamps buried for 100 years showed signs of life. It was cleaned, screwed into a socket near the time capsule site and slowly powered up to the point of emitting light.

“It’s fitting that this time capsule was meant to be unearthed when significant changes in the incandescent light bulb occurred,” commented GE Lighting’s President & CEO Maryrose Sylvester. “We’re celebrating innovation at a time when GE scientists and engineers at Nela Park and around the world are developing advanced lighting solutions that are transforming not only the application of lighting, but also the business of lighting.”

GE’s energy-efficient lighting solutions are enabling millions of dollars in energy and maintenance cost savings for some of the world’s biggest and best-known brands, and municipality roadway projects of every size.

“When GE customers such as Marriott, Walmart and cities big and small—from Sydney, Australia to Stamford, Connecticut—can save money with energy-efficient lighting that costs less to operate and lasts as long as a decade,” adds Sylvester, “they can put the savings toward new or expanded growth initiatives. We’ve always been a company that offers solutions that make the world work better. Just ask our customers.”

In April 2013, the company will bring Nela Park employees together for a ceremonial burying of a new time capsule, which is expected to include a GE Energy Smart® 60-watt LED bulb that lasts over 22 years when operated 3 hours a day, new more informative consumer light bulb packaging debuting in 2012, marketing materials and an employee photo.

Nela Park and the GE Lighting InstituteIn addition to being the nation’s first industrial campus and GE Lighting’s world headquarters, the Nela Park property was once a vineyard known as “Panorama Heights.” Chosen for what was then a rural location, the 92-acre campus sits approximately 234 feet above—and three miles from—Lake Erie. The “Nela” in the park’s name stands for “National Electrical Lamp Association,” an organization that was eventually purchased by GE. On April 18, 1913, GE Lighting moved its headquarters from a downtown location at East 45^th Street and Hough Avenue to Nela Park in a caravan of cars and horse-drawn carriages. At the time, the move was known as one of the biggest in Cleveland’s history. Not only was it completed in a day, but employees only missed three hours of work. Since its establishment, Nela Park has been home to a number of innovations including both halogen and LED technologies. In 1975 Nela Park was listed in the National Registry of Historic Places.

Since the founding of the Nela School of Lighting in 1924—it became the GE Lighting Institute in 1933—over a quarter million customers from around the world have visited the Nela Park campus for training and education. Approximately 4,000 customers visit Nela Park and the GE Lighting Institute annually.

About GE Lighting
GE Lighting invents with the vigor of its founder Thomas Edison to develop energy-efficient solutions that change the way people light their world in commercial, industrial, municipal and residential settings. The business employs over 17,000 people in more than 100 countries, and sells products under the Reveal^® and Energy Smart^® consumer brands, and Evolve™, GTx, Immersion™, Infusion™, Lumination^® and Tetra^® commercial brands, all trademarks of GE. General Electric (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter to build a world that works better. For more information, visitwww.gelighting.com.

News Release from the DOE - L Prize

Energy Department Announces Next Phase of L Prize® Competition to Create Innovative Energy-Saving Lighting Products

March 8, 2012 - 2:00pm

As part of the Energy Department’s commitment to driving innovation in U.S. manufacturing and helping American businesses and consumers save money by saving energy, the Department today launched the next phase of the Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize (L Prize) competition. The L Prize competition challenges the lighting industry to develop high performance, energy-saving replacements for conventional light bulbs.

The competition announced today will spur leading-edge companies to build innovative LED replacements for conventional parabolic aluminized reflector (PAR 38) lamps, commonly known as spot or flood lamps, which are in widespread use in retail businesses and as outdoor security lights and track lights.

“The L Prize competition challenges the best and brightest engineers and scientists across America’s lighting industry to drive innovation in new, more efficient products and boost our nation’s competitiveness in manufacturing,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “The winning products will help expand lighting choices for consumers, reduce our nation’s energy use, and save money for American families and business owners.”
There are approximately 90 million PAR 38 light bulbs installed in the U.S., in both residential and commercial applications. The Energy Department estimates that replacing them with bulbs efficient enough to win the L Prize would save the country 11 terawatt-hours of electricity per year – approximately equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of Washington, D.C. – and avoid 7 million metric tons of carbon emissions.

The L Prize was established by Congress in the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007. The Energy Department launched the L Prize competition in May 2008 to spur development of exceptionally high-performance, ultra-efficient LED alternatives for two of the most widely used light bulbs: 60-watt incandescent lamps and PAR 38 halogen lamps. The first L Prize was awarded in the 60-watt category in August 2011 to Philips Lighting North America. The winning product is expected to hit retail store shelves in spring 2012.

The rigorous performance testing needed to win the L Prize ensures that the performance, quality, lifetime, costs, and availability of winning products meet expectations for mass manufacturing and widespread adoption. U.S. sourcing remains a key part of the commercial production requirements, generating jobs for U.S. workers. For the PAR 38 category, at least 50% of the LEDs must be produced in the U.S., and all of the assembly must be done in the U.S.

For more information on the L Prize competition, including full specifications and requirements for the PAR 38 replacement category, see www.lightingprize.org. DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) accelerates development and facilitates deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies and market-based solutions that strengthen U.S. energy security, environmental quality, and economic vitality.