Current State of Energy Efficient Lighting

In late January 2007, a member of the California legislature proposed a ban on the sale of general service incandescent lamps. By mid March, 2007, countries representing more than 430 million people, or roughly one out of 10 people on the planet who has access to electric lighting, announced the phase-out of today’s general service incandescent lamps, and other countries are considering it, as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions that may contribute to global warming.

In early March, the Lighting Efficiency Coalition joined with several U.S. senators to call for national technology-neutral performance standards that will phase out the least-efficient products from the market. Specifically, the Coalition called for today’s general service incandescent lamps to be eliminated by 2016, which it says is enough time for a phased, orderly market transition. Until then, the group calls for public policies that provide incentives for consumers and businesses to switch to higher-efficiency alternatives.

To ensure a timely and broad adoption of energy-efficient lighting, such as compact fluorescent lamps, Philips recommends that leaders of industry, government and NGOs support discussions to develop a plan to prudently phase out inefficient light bulbs said Brian Dundon, vice chairman for Philips Lighting.

 By March 15, 2007 Representative Jane Harman (D) of California introduced a bill (HR1547) in Congress that seeks higher efficacy standards for general service incandescent lamps. The bill is ambitious, seeking to prohibit the sale of lamps that operate at an efficacy lower than 120 lumens/W by 2020 an efficacy about 6-8 times higher than the average efficacy of today’s general service incandescents. The bill has been referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

 Specifically, it requires DoE, within one year of enactment, to create regulations that would prohibit the sale of lamps that fail to meet the below efficacy standards:

• 60 lumens/W by 2012
• 90 lumens/W by 2016
• 120 lumens/W by 2020

The bill further instructs DoE to identify exemptions, but says that exemptions are only allowable in specialized lighting applications, such as health and safety, and not general illumination. Further, the bill appears to regulate all lamps. Additionally, it instructs DoE to, within 6 months of enactment, submit a plan to Congress that would encourage and provide incentives to consumers and businesses to utilize more-efficient lamps.

 The legislation appears perfectly timed with DoE’s own efforts to regulate incandescent lamps. The Energy Policy Act of 1992 instructed DoE to initiate general service incandescent lamp efficacy standards rulemaking between 2000 and 2002, but DoE did not meet the deadline. Now it has planned an evaluation of mandatory federal standards for these lamps. An advance notice of proposed rulemaking will be issued by November 2007 and a final rule by June 2009, to take effect by June 2012.

 What’s at stake: In the U.S., there are about four billion screw-base light sockets that are currently fitted with general service incandescent lamps. If every one of these switched to the most efficient alternative, consumers and businesses could save about $18 billion annually while reducing energy demand by the equivalent of 80 coal-burning power plants and carbon emissions by more than 158 million tons.