EurActiv : Updates on lead up to EU 100W light bulb ban

In October 2008, EU energy ministers invited the European Commission to draft a regulation to phase out the sale of all incandescent and poorly-performing light bulbs by 2010. This is to be done within the framework of the Eco-design Directive (see EurActiv LinksDossier), which provides performance requirements for energy-using products.

The European Parliament gave its green light to a phase-out of incandescent light bulbs on 17 February after an attempt by a group of MEPs to block the regulation was rejected (EurActiv 18/02/09).

The Commission officially adopted a regulation to improve the energy efficiency on non-directional household lamps on 19 March 2009 (EurActiv 19/03/09). The measure will gradually phase out all incandescent light bulbs and inefficient halogens by 2012 in favour of compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) or efficient halogens.

In March, the European Commission adopted a new regulation to gradually phase out all incandescent light bulbs and inefficient halogens between 1 September and 2012. The ban was intended to help in the EU’' fight against climate change as the EU executive estimates that a move to efficient halogens and compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) could slash the EU's CO2 emissions by about 15 million tons every year.

The beneficiary, so the Commission believes, will be the consumer as a household will "save easily" €50 (£40) a year due to lower electricity consumption and the longer lifetime of the new lamps that will compensate for the higher purchase price.

In anticipation of the new rules, the sales of traditional light bulbs fell by as much as 35% in many European countries in the first quarter of 2009, according to the market research company Gfk. At the same time, energy-saving light bulbs have steadily increased their market share. In the UK, for example, 12.3 million were sold in the last quarter of 2008 compared with 8.9 million in the same period a year earlier.

Osram, a leading lighting manufacturer, reported that green products now account for 65% of its sales and it hopes for a boost to 80% in the coming years.

"The big trend is energy efficiency" said Martin Goetzeler, CEO of Osram, adding that the EU decision would give a further boost to technological change.

Consumers argue that CFL bulbs cannot match the light quality of incandescent bulbs, saying that they are two dim and distort colours. Moreover, concerns have been raised that the flickering fluorescent light could trigger migraines or epilepsy seizures.

Some also question the greenness of CFLs, which contain mercury and require proper recycling facilities. However, as coal-fired stations emit mercury, incandescent light bulbs indirectly emit more mercury by using up larger amounts of electricity, experts noticed.

The economic and environmental argument against incandescent lights is nevertheless convincing as they convert only around 5% of the energy they use to light, wasting the rest as heat. Fluorescent lights use up to 75% less energy than incandescent lamps, while efficient halogens that match the light quality of conventional bulbs save somewhere between 25-50% of energy.

On 17 February MEPs backed European Commission proposals to extend the scope of the Eco-design Directive and the Ecolabel, but rejected proposals to include food products in the plans.

The European Parliament's environment committee voted on a report to cover all products with an impact on energy use, such as windows, insulation materials and water-using devices, in the EU's Eco-design Directive (EurActiv 24/10/08). Currently, only devices that directly use energy are part of the scheme.

MEPs, however, rejected a proposal from the rapporteur, Romanian MEP Magor Imre Csibi (ALDE), to go as far as including all products except means of transport. This would have effectively mandated the Commission to set minimum energy requirements for food and clothes, for example.

The committee consequently requested the Commission to come up with a proposal by 2012, extending the scope only to "non-energy-related products" with "significant potential for reducing their environmental impacts throughout their whole life-cycle".

Backing on traditional light bulb ban

At the same time, MEPs also voted on whether to block the Commission's implementing measure to phase out incandescent and inefficient halogen light bulbs by 2012. The EU executive proposed the measure under the Eco-design Directive in December 2008 (EurActiv 09/12/08).

German MEPs Holger Krahmer (ALDE) and Anja Weisgerber (EPP-ED) had drafted a resolution arguing that the regulatory committee's procedure, which excludes the Parliament from decision-making, was not justified for the banning of a product like light bulbs. An overwhelming majority of MEPs nevertheless voted against it, effectively endorsing the Commission's proposal.

Energy Saving Day (E-Day) 2009 : Isles of Scilly

E-Day 2009 : Isles of Scilly (Tues 6 Oct, 2009)

Energy Saving Day (E-Day) 2009 will be staged on the Isles of Scilly, approximately 30 miles out to sea from the tip of Land's End, on Tuesday 6th October, 2009.

This island community achieved the biggest reduction in electricity demand measured anywhere in the UK during last year's E-Day (http://www.e-day.org.uk).

With the help of the local school, radio station, council, wildlife trust, transition town group and many others, E-Day 2009 aims to build on the success of last year's grassroots effort.


Isles of Scilly Earth Summit (Sat 3 - Sun 4 Oct, 2009)

During the build up to E-Day, the Isles of Scilly Earth Summit will be staged in the Town Hall of the Isles of Scilly's main island, St Mary's, between Saturday 3 October and Sunday 4 October.

At this event, international, UK and local islanders will describe how their islands are already feeling the impacts of climate change, as well as their hopes and fears for the future.

World class speakers have been confirmed from Papua New Guinea, Samoa, The Galapagos, Madagascar and others have been invited to speak about a variety of other fascinating, yet overlooked, islands.


Educational and Creative Resources (Online)

A wide range of educational and creative activities are being specially developed for this year's E-Day and should be of particular use to schools and families.

Please join the Twitter feed (see below) if you would like to follow E-Day's progress, to support E-Day in any way or to join in nearer the time.

The new E-Day website (http://www.e-day.org.uk) will be launched in early September 2009.

The new E-Day website will be launched in approximately one week's time...

See Jon Plowman's (the former Head of BBC Comedy) Review of Energy Saving Displays for E-Day here:

Part 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u8MiIeIZhU

Part 2 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_10fai33rlY

Many thanks

Matt

http://www.twitter.com/energysavingday

http://www.youtube.com/energysavingday

Labels: E-Day 2009 Energy Saving Day

Ceravision : Using microwaves to produce light

BAN THE BULB : WORLD EXCLUSIVE!

Earlier this week Ban The Bulb visited an innovation centre at Bletchley Park to meet the team behind a company called Ceravision that has developed a revolutionary lighting technology, which could replace traditional incandescents light bulbs, halogens, fluorescents, high intensity discharge lamps and LEDs over the years ahead.

Their ingenious electrodeless, plasma lamp technology uses carefully contained and focused microwaves to heat special blends of gas in a way that efficiently produces a full spectrum of bright and controllable light (equivalent to 70W - 5000 W incandescents) without producing excess heat or using mercury.

Ceravision's technology consists of the following components:

a magnetron which emits microwave energy,

a transparent quartz resonator which concentrates the microwave energy in a small volume,

a plasma space (molded within the one-piece resonator) which contains a mixture of gas and metal halides.

an antenna which delivers the microwave energy into the resonator, causing an electric field to ionise the gas plasma, which vaporises and combines with the metal halides to produce light.


In the past, people have tried using microwaves to heat gases in large glass bulbs. However, this technology is different, and represents a major step forward, because it uses a solid block, known as resonator, to shorten the wavelengths of the radio frequencies and heat gases within a far smaller volume.

Initially, Ceravision used opaque discs of ceramic to focus microwaves on a small glass bulb containing gas embedded within the ceramic disc. This approach succeeded in providing a bright point source of light, but the opaque block of ceramic prevented most of the light produced by the glass bulb, embedded within the resonator, from being emitted.

Ceravision have therefore changed their original design by patenting the use of a transparent quartz resonator, which allows more of the light produced by the glass bulb to be emitted.

Fortunately, the microwaves needed to make this device work are safely trapped within the resonator by a simple metal mesh, which acts as a Faraday Cage.

As a result of this well understood containment process, the microwaves are radiated into the bulb via the antenna, which lies next to the glass bulb at the centre of the resonator, and can be used to create an illuminating gas plasma inside the glass bulb.

Using this technology it is already possible to replace High Intensity Discharge (HID) lamps and new small source lamps (such as car headlights and projector lamps), UV lamps and domestic lamps are under development - with new designs that are 2+ x more energy efficient, 2x - 25x longer lived and affordable.

Ceravision's electrodeless microwave driven lamp system is extremely exciting because it offers better colour rendering and dimming than both compact flourescent lamps and high intensity discharge lamps, and has fewer problems with excess heat production than incandescents and LEDs.

It simply remains to be seen how well the energy performance and purchase price of domestic versions of Ceravision's technology will compare to the competing technologies, but it is definitely a very positive development that the EU's ban of traditional incandescents has allowed radically new lighting technologies, such as this, to come to market.

Microwave energy at a frequency of 2.4 GHz is focused into a small transparent glass ampoule (called a Burner) containing a noble gas at low pressure and microgramme quantities of selected metal halide salts. The microwave energy focused into the waveguide containing the burner forms an electric field ionizing the noble gas molecules to rapidly form a gas plasma within the glass ampoule, the plasma begins to vaporize the metal halide salts present. The plasma and metal halide salts combine to emit light, this technique provides the ability to produce a broad spectral emission using simple chemical compounds. This molecular excitation is a unique feature of the technology and allows Ceravision to deliver the world's first mercury-free High Intensity Discharge lamp that can deliver white light of exceptional purity (a Colour Rendering Index (CRI) measurement of 97 being achievable), and which also meets all current and projected regulations for control of radio frequency emission from any part of the system.



The burner is made of low hydroxyl quartz glass and contains no metal wires or metal electrodes. This allows the light formation from the plasma process to continue without contamination of the burner contents by metal wires or electrodes modifying the internal chemistry. This simplicity of construction maintains an unprecedented purity of materials within the burner during its continuing operation and allows the lighting platform to offer designers excellent colour constancy and lumen maintenance over an extended operating lifetime.

Labels: 2.4Ghz, antenna, Ceravision, Faraday Cage, HID, magnetron, microwave, resonator