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Inefficient Incandescent Bulbs Phase out Move |
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Lighting has a substantial impact on the energy and environment. The global energy consumption for lighting in 2005 is estimated to be 19% of total global electricity use. The total cost of lighting is about US$460 billion per annum or more than 1% of the world’s GDP. Lighting for residential sector accounts for 31% of this huge energy amount. However, the global average luminous efficacy for the residential sector is just 23.7lm/W, which is caused by the extensive use of inefficient incandescent lighting bulbs.
On February 20, 2007, Australia announced it would phase out the sale of inefficient incandescent light bulbs by 2010, replacing them with more efficient lighting products, which consume only about one fourth as much electricity. After Australia’s announcement, it seems that many countries consider as well to support this shift to more energy efficient lighting technologies. In mid-March, a U.S. coalition of environmental groups—including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Alliance to Save Energy, the American Coalition for an Energy-Efficient Economy, and the Earth Day Network-along with Philips Lighting launched an initiative to shift to the more-efficient light bulbs in all of the country’s estimated 4 billion sockets by 2016. On April 25, 2007, the Canadian government announced it would phase out sales of incandescent bulbs by 2012. In the United Kingdom, lighting products retailers announced in September 2007 that they are to phase out traditional incandescent light bulbs and offer customers only low-energy fluorescent bulbs by 2011. The European Union announced that it plans to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Part of this cut will be achieved by replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). In India, Greenpeace urged the Indian government to ban incandescent bulbs in order to cut carbon emissions. |
