A revolutionary new light bulb being introduced across stores in New York City just in time for Earth Day could be the future of energy efficient lighting, experts say.
The Philips LED 60-watt replacement bulb uses just 10 watts of energy, has the same color quality as standard incandescent lights and lasts for over a whopping 25 years.
Getting the most environmentally friendly light bulb out there will take a chunk of change out of consumer’s pockets – it retails for $49.97 – though it does promise savings of more than $6 in energy costs a year and leaves a much smaller carbon footprint than the traditional incandescent bulb.
It also gives off more of a natural-looking light and doesn’t contain some of the same dangerous chemicals that the also environmentally friendly CFL bulbs contain.
The light bulb brightened on the scene when it was awarded the Department of Energy’s Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize (L Prize) competition last year and the company began slowly rolling out the product in stores across the country this year.
The DOE estimates that if every 60-watt incandescent bulb in the U.S. was replaced with the L Prize winner, the country would save about $3.9 billion a year in electricity costs and avoid 20 million metric tons of carbon emissions.