US organisation supports Commission Eco-design lamp phase-out plan
(24 Apr 08) In a letter to the European Commission, the US-based Natural Resources Defense Council voices strong support for the ambition to phase out incandescent lamps in the EU. Based on American experience, the letter also urges the Commission not to repeat some of the mistakes that were made in the US.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which claims to have more than 1.2 million members and online activists, was the leading energy efficiency advocate participating in the US negotiations between the lighting industry and members of Congress that led to the passage of national legislation in December 2007. This legislation will phase out today’s inefficient incandescent screw-based light bulbs beginning in 2012, and has set a minimum efficiency target of 45 lumen per watt for screw-based light sources by 2020.
NRDC expresses strong support for the first or second option in the proposed EU eco-design requirements. Option 1 would only allow Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) or better on the market, whereas option 2 would also allow high efficiency halogen lamps.
The Commission is believed to pursue option 2, whereas the European Lighting Industry would favour an option which allows longer time to implement and also would leave halogen lamps of lower efficiency on the market.
NRDC argues out that the five-year transition period proposed by the Commission in option 2 would be more than sufficient to achieve the necessary production changes that are needed. ”While many have forecasted a lack of compliant bulbs [in the US], in particular for CFLs, we want to assure you that high quality CFL production has increased dramatically over the past 3 years and the industry has learned how to scale up with short advance notice.”
In the letter, NRDC also discusses other key elements in the proposed EU legislation. The EU standard would address lamps with a wide range of lamp caps, which NRDC supports. In the US, the scope of lamps was initially defined by their shape; thus, allowing a loophole whereby industry could easily bypass the legislation by creating new lamp shapes. This proposal was eventually rejected.
In the US, some lamps are marketed as “enhanced spectrum,” “modified spectrum,” or “full spectrum”. These incandescent lamps simply have a bluish coating applied to the glass that slightly alters the spectral distribution of the light that is emitted. NRDC writes that ”while we were able to prevent these lamps from being exempted from the federal regulations as some of the big three lamp manufacturers had initially proposed, the first phase of the US standards provide a much weaker efficiency requirement for this subcategory of bulbs. As a result of this allowance, the modified spectrum lamps under Phase 1 of the standard will be no more efficient than today’s conventional incandescent lamps.” It is believed that the current EU definition of the scope would cover such lamps, and the inefficient ones would not be allowed.
Finally, NRDC points to the importance of compliance testing. In the US, a compliance-testing programme drastically improved the quality of CFLs on the market.
Download NRDC letter
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