A welcome new post by lighting designer Kevan Shaw, a recognized "stakeholder" by the EU Commission and their EcoDesign Committee legislating about light bulbs, and who therefore has had the pleasure - or not - of sitting in on many meetings with them....
The incandescent lamp is dead...
Long live the incandescent lamp!
September 1, 2012
Today sees the implementation of the final phase of the EcoDesign regulation outlawing the “Placing on the Market” of conventional domestic incandescent lamps. As has happened in the last couple of years I have been fielding phone calls from various media whose idea of a story seems largely limited to finding people who are hoarding vast quantities of old lamps.
So what are we left with?
Currently in the UK there still seems to be some availability of even 60W and 100W lamps. The big retailers such as DIY sheds and supermarkets do not have any, however local retailers, corner shops and pound stores seem to have continuing stocks. Surprisingly some of these seem to be coming from major players, Philips particularly seem well represented.
Exceptions from the ban include “specialist lamps.” These include lamps for domestic appliances such as ovens, cooker hoods, refrigerators and the like. Some of these applications, particularly ovens, are just too hostile an environment for any of the energy saving technologies to survive, it is likely that these lamps will be around for a while. Another class of lamps excepted are the “Rough Service” type. These are intended for applications where vibration, heat, rough handling and similar things are encountered. They tend to have thicker filaments with more supports. This results in them being markedly less efficient than conventional incandescent lamps but also many have specifically long service lives easily challenging the boasts of the Compact Fluorescent lamp of 8 to 10 years and treading on the toes of some LED replacements. At least one UK lamp supplier is pushing the bounds of this exception by offering rough service “Candle” shaped lamps. We also see Rough Service lamps on the shelves of bigger DIY sheds and very visible at retailers like Halfords and Maplin who, arguably, have stocked these as specialist products for years.
The other “incandescent” lamp type that remains available are the Halogen energy savers. For the most part these are a really good substitute providing comparable light output and colour performance with a typical 30% energy saving. Unfortunately some suppliers are selling rather poor quality products that fail to meet the performance claimed, however that happens everywhere.
What of the future?
The current regulations are required to be reviewed in 2014. It is inevitable that there will be pressure to increase the performance requirements and potential “loopholes,” such as the rough service lamps, will be addressed particularly if it is obvious that these are supplying a greater proportion of the market than might be expected.
Is the ban achieving its goals?
That rather depends on who you are and what your aims were in promoting the legislation. As a strategy for energy saving i believe it is a total failure. Despite researching and indirectly asking questions at the political level there seems absolutely no evidence that there is any energy saving attributable to this legislation. It is important that people continue to ask politicians for evidence on this. We cannot allow the review to take place without some realistic evidence on whether or not energy savings have been achieved.
From the lamp industry perspective the ban has been very effective in removing a low profit margin cheap product from the market and replacing it with a selection of relatively high priced and higher profit margin products. What they may not have achieved is quite the profitability they expected due to the shift in manufacture to the far east. The majority of CFLs and LEDs are made in factories not owned outright by the old lamp manufacturers. These companies are now largely middle men doing deals with Chinese lamp factories who brand and package products with the big names we are familiar with.
From an environmental perspective we are seeing a big failure.
We have replaced a simple, relatively inert product that can be safely dumped in landfills with a variety of products that contain Mercury, plastics that are not re-cycleable but use oil in their manufacture and considerable amounts of electronic components. Neither is there a suitable infrastructure to recover these lamps at end of life nor is there any effective form of compulsion for users to ensure they are disposed of correctly. Europe is also directly importing tonnes of mercury from China each year but has also banned exporting it so even of there was a suitable infrastructure there is no way of ensuring recovery and re-use of this material from lamps.
We may be seeing the end of this phase of legislation, however we need to continue to question this legislation and ensure that the review required is properly done and that all these issues are properly dealt with. Please do write to your MEP and question this legislation if you do there is a chance that things will go no further, if you don’t and the Eurocrats get away with this you can bet they will think up something even more stupid in pretty short order!
Kevan Shaw 1 September 2012
Comment
The point about regulations not actually saving energy for society is of course important to make, but should be obvious enough to readers of this blog, this and much else also being covered on the "How Bans are Wrongly Justified" page, with extensive references.
To comment on some other points..
So what are we left with? Currently in the UK there still seems to be some availability of even 60W and 100W lamps....
At least one UK lamp supplier is offering rough service “Candle” shaped lamps. We also see Rough Service lamps on the shelves of bigger DIY sheds and very visible at retailers like Halfords and Maplin...
Indeed there seem still to be reasonable UK supplies of incandescents, and rough service types are being made and marketed and sold to households - all of which may of course change in time.
There was reported suspicion that imports and distributor stock of incandescents was substantially boosted before the ban axe came down, starting September 2009, a logical enough assumption for what after all is (or was) the most popular form of domestic lighting, though (perhaps unsurprisingly) I cannot find any evidence of it.
The media are now similarly saying that Bell and other manufacturers are "ramping up production of rough service bulbs"... so perhaps if any ban decision comes, stocks will again last a long while (which incidentally yet again puts a dent in supposed savings, from people refusing to do what they "should", as good Europeans).
On UK (and, by inference, EU open market) bulb availability including special candle types also in rough service format, see the recent August 30 post here
"UK/EU Distributors Clarify: Candle, Golf Ball and other Incandescents also to Stay Available".
Surprisingly some of these [remaining incandescent lamps] seem to be coming from major players, Philips particularly seem well represented
Philips, GE, and Osram/Sylvania manufacturers lobbied for and welcomed the ban, see the Ceolas industrial politics section, and more on their activities since can be seen by say putting say "Philips" in the search box of this blog.
As said before, there is nothing at all wrong in manufacturer seeking profits.
However, as also seen, they seem to get unnecessarily good help from politicians, to the detriment of consumers, not just with regulations, but in all the subsidised replacement programs, including in developing countries where the hapless citizens can't afford the bulbs that other citizens have rejected (or bans would not be "necessary" from insufficient voluntary purchases).
There is also the specific irony of Philips (and maybe others) selling "legal "California" 95 Watt bulbs, given that they handily slipped in with Greenpeace and others to campaign for an incandescent ban that started with 100 Watt bulbs, to help Save the Earth
("Save Our Profit" probably does not garner the same potential support ;-)).
The other “incandescent” lamp type that remains available are the Halogen energy savers. For the most part these are a really good substitute providing comparable light output and colour performance with a typical 30% energy saving.
However, as Kevan has himself pointed out, the Halogens are also slated for a ban.
By 2016 all "general service" replacement type Halogens in the EU are effectively banned from the standards set
(Tip from the politicians and their hangaround bureaucrat friends: If you don't want to seem nasty by inflicting a "ban" on the idiot citizens you have the misfortune to rule, just set a "standard" that is impossible to meet)
From an environmental perspective we are seeing a big failure. We have replaced a simple, relatively inert product that can be safely dumped in landfills with a variety of products that contain Mercury, plastics that are not re-cycleable but use oil in their manufacture and considerable amounts of electronic components. Neither is there a suitable infrastructure to recover these lamps at end of life nor is there any effective form of compulsion for users to ensure they are disposed of correctly.
Yes, how amazing that Our Dear Beloved Leaders (bows head in gratitude) do not think of the consequences of their actions.
Europe is also directly importing tonnes of mercury from China each year but has also banned exporting it so even of there was a suitable infrastructure there is no way of ensuring recovery and re-use of this material from lamps.
This is an interesting aspect I have not seen raised before.
If Chinese citizens are suffering so much in the local extraction, processing and use of mercury in lamp making, then why not let them have the mercury back - after all, it is already there, in environmental terms.
If you live in Brussels, don't bother trying to understand this.
What of the future?
The current regulations are required to be reviewed in 2014.
It is inevitable that there will be pressure to increase the performance requirements and potential “loopholes,” such as the rough service lamps, will be addressed particularly if it is obvious that these are supplying a greater proportion of the market than might be expected...
It is important that people continue to ask politicians for evidence [of energy saving]. We cannot allow the review to take place without some realistic evidence on whether or not energy savings have been achieved...
Please do write to your MEP and question this legislation if you do there is a chance that things will go no further, if you don’t and the Eurocrats get away with this you can bet they will think up something even more stupid in pretty short order!
Worth highlighting... no comment needed really.
Ways in which people can make their objections known, not just in the EU but in the USA and elsewhere also, is gradually being listed on a "page" on this blog, see the left hand column.
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