Dr Matt Prescott discusses EU light bulb ban

BBC Radio 4 : Today Programme : Lights go out on 100 watt bulbs

After 120 years, 100 watt bulbs are being phased out in favour of energy-saving ones. Matt Prescott, director of campaign group Ban the Bulb, examines new rules which means all traditional bulbs will be disappear by 2012.


BBC World Service : Newshour (Europe) : Old Style light bulbs banned in EU

The traditional incandescent light bulb, first put on the market by Thomas Edison in 1879, could be on its way out.

From today, the manufacture and import of 100 watt bulbs and all frosted bulbs will be banned in the European Union.

The new rules mean that consumers will be able to buy only the more efficient long life fluorescent or halogen lamps.

However, there has been something of a backlash against the ban.

In Britain, supermarkets reported a massive run on the traditional type, while one newspaper gave away 25,000 incandescent light bulbs in "outrage at further European intervention in British affairs".

The European Commission claims the ban on inefficient bulbs will save about 40 terawatt hours of energy a year, enough to power a small country.

Matt Prescott is the founder of the Ban the Bulb campaign.

Labels: BBC, EU light bulb ban, Justin Webb, Newshour, Radio 4, Today Programme, World Service

EU-wide light bulb ban passed : 44 votes v 14 votes

Ban The Bulb is pleased to be able to inform you that the European Union's Environment Committee has officially voted (with 44 votes for and 14 votes against) to phase out domestic incandescent light bulbs.

This officially means that, across the EU's 27 member nations, 100W light bulbs will now be phased out as of September 2009.

In December 2008, The European Commission's Regulatory Committee voted to recommend a ban, but this latest vote, by the EU's Environment Committee consisting of MEPs, means that the ban will definitely become law.

As far as Ban The Bulb knows, this is the first law to phase out domestic incandescent light bulbs to be passed anywhere in the world...

The Ban The Bulb campaign was set up 4 years ago, and spent a long time campaigning on this issue alone, so is obviously delighted to see this turn of events.

Ban The Bulb would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the significant help that it, and the goal of a highly energy efficient Europe, have recently received from Germana Canzi, Edouard Toulouse and Stephan Scheuer; who have all played an important part in ensuring that during the EU's consultation process was more thorough and transparent than might otherwise have been the case.

Update : EurActive.Com : Parliament paves way for wider eco-design product list

Labels: EU light bulb ban

EU negotiations... the latest news

Ban The Bulb has spoken to it's contact in Brussels and found out that the EU's Energy Commissioner, Andris Pielbalgs, should be holding a press conference at about 5pm local time, in order to outline the improvements in the energy performance of light bulbs that have been agreed by the EU's 27 nations.

This decision is subject to a qualified majority vote and will be revised within 5 years, so it is critically important that a clear signal is sent to the lighting industry that it needs to do more to phase out both incandescent light bulbs and halogens, and to bring LEDs to market.

The three main issues at the EU negotiations appear to be:

1) The time allowed to phase out incandescents. At the moment incandescents look doomed, but as though some of them will be allowed on the market until 2012. This is a rather leisurely deadline, and one which could almost certainly be tightened.

2) Nordic nations (including Finland and Denmark) are concerned that the timing and level of ambition for the phase out non-clear (frosted) glass light bulbs is tougher than for clear glass light bulbs because frosted bulbs can already be perfectly replaced by highly efficiently compact fluorescent lamps.

Apparently, the majority of nordic lamps are frosted and this might mean that Finland and Denmark want longer to make changes. This could result in the postponement of non-clear incandescent lamps being phased out.

3) The final date for standard halogens to be phased out. Halogens only offer a 25% improvement on the energy performance of traditional incandescent designs, but are currently not scheduled to be phased out before 2016.

This could mean that typical household lamps will still only need to be 25% more efficient than today in 8 years time, rather than the 90% more efficient that would be possible if CFLs and LEDs formed the new energy performance standard.

In general, it sounds as though the lighting industry is happy with the European Commissions proposals and this suggests to Ban The Bulb that the politicians are not being nearly tough enough on the industry.

As things stand, the lighting industry could flood the market with cheap halogens and kill off other more efficient alternatives, such as LEDs, if it wanted to; simply because this suited the industry's existing manufacturing capacity and business plans.

The industry could also re-open the standards in 5 years and lobby to keep them soft, thereby postponing the uptake of LEDs yet again and keeping consumer's energy bills unnecessarily high well into the future.

Ban The Bulb feels it is extremely important that within 5 years the new energy performance standard for domestic lights is set by LEDs, which offer a 90% energy saving, rather than by halogens which offer only a 25% improvement in energy performance.

If the EU doesn't want to show leadership and caves in to industry lobbying, perhaps President-Elect Obama will be stronger and force this necessary change.

Otherwise all of the grandiose statements about wanting to cut carbon emissions and energy use by 20% by 2020 or 80% by 2050 are nothing more than hot air.

With thanks to Edouard Toulouse and Germana Canzi for their help in the preparation of this update.

Labels: Andris Piebalgs, EU light bulb ban, halogens, LEDs

EU light bulb ban imminent... but how ambitious?

After years of talking about phasing out light bulbs we will finally get a chance to see how ambitious our politicians will be when it comes for taking concrete action.

Tomorrow in Brussels senior representatives of the EU's 27 nations will vote on measures which will result in 100W and 60W incandescent light bulbs being phased out across the EU between 2011 and 2013.

The lighting industry is advocating a new type of incandescent light bulb which will use 25% less electricity than today's incandescents by 2013.

The Ban The Bulb energy efficiency campaign feels that this level of ambition is totally inadequate, given that substitute compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) using 65-80% less electricity and light emitting diodes (LEDs) using 90% less electricity (to produce the same amount of light) are already available.

LEDs are definitely the technology we should be aiming for, within 5 years, as they offer instant brightness, dimmability and contain no mercury.

LED alternatives to 40W, 60W and 100W floor and table lamp incandescent lights bulbs are already on sale and simply need to be made cheaper and more readily available as quickly as possible.

High quality CFLs used to cost approximately £5 when this campaign was set up in 2005, but Tesco now sells excellent designs of CFL for as little as 81p. The same economies of scale need to be applied to LEDs without delay and excuses.

If we cannot be ambitious with light bulbs how on earth are we going to make much more difficult items such as our cars and homes significantly more energy efficient.

President-Elect Obama has recent said that he is going to be tough on the US auto industry and demand improved energy efficiency.

The EU needs to be similarly tough on the world's existing light bulb manufacturers, which have patents, factories, profits and shareholders to protect and do not need to pay the electricity bills of the EU's 500 million consumers or to finance the 10 extra power stations needed to keep the EU's lights on if their preferred technology is used to define the energy performance standards for domestic lighting.

Please see the following documents for more detail:

Dr Matt Prescott's recent articles for BBC News Online

No time to dim efficiency ambitions (Nov 2008)

Shedding light on call to ban bulb (Apr 2006)

Light bulbs not such a good idea (Feb 2006)


Technical references:

Discussion paper on domestic lighting products Ecodesign for CF (Oct 08)

Working document on draft regulation on non-directional household lamps (Oct 08)

Position from Ban The Bulb (Oct 08) - sent to DEFRA, BERR, DECC, MTP and the EU's Energy Commissioner

Position from ECOS, EEB, ZMWG, CAN-Europe, INFORSE-Europe, Greenpeace and WWF (Mar 08)

Make the Switch : European Lamp Companies Federation (Nov 07)


Important political milestones for BTB campaign...

Energy efficiency high on Obama stimulus plan (Dec 08)

Brown and Cameron battle over green air travel and phasing out old-style light bulbs (Mar 07) - Gordon Brown

EU switches off our old lightbulbs (Mar 07) - Angela Merkel

Australia pulls plug on old bulbs (Feb 2007) - Malcolm Turnbull

How many legislators does it take to change a lightbulb? (Jan 2007) - Lloyd Levine

UK asks the EU to consider an EU-wide light bulb ban (July 2006) - Tony Blair

Campaign archive: 2005 - present

With thanks to Germana Canzi and Edouard Toulouse

Labels: Brussels, EU light bulb ban, EU27