Electric lights & appliances
see also Artificial lighting Under European Union law, all incandescent bulbs will cease being sold by 2016 and be replaced by energy efficient compact fluorescent lamps ( cfl ). The building regulations already require a percentage of new light fittings to be low energy only. This will save an enormous amount of energy and pollution. Handled correctly, low energy lighting can be superior to incandescent lighting in a number of ways. However there are several issues, real and perceived, around low energy lights which need addressing. Some of these are to do with general acceptance, others with technical issues.
- Lower levels of light output is sometimes a criticism with low energy bulbs. This typically comes from stupid people who have tried to replace an incandescent 100W lamp with an 11W cfl. It needs to be at least 20W.
- Colour rendering has been something of a problem with cfls although that problem has now been fairly well fixed. Some of the worst makes used to give a strange slightly sickly colour of light with a tinge of green but these are getting fewer. Cfls may never give the full frequency lighting spectrum that incandescent lighting does but it may give healthier lighting if the results coming from research into 17,000ºK fluorescent lighting by Philips is anything to go by.
- run up speed is being rapidly improved
- dimming is now possible with some cfls
- problems with bulbs breaking loose from their bayonet plugs within the light fitting have ceases with cfls. This was linked to the heat problem which often caused the plastic sockets to go brittle.
Conventional fluorescent lighting is particularly good when high frequency gear is used.
White goods and other electrical appliances should be chosen for their EU energy rating.
