CFL’s Days are Numbered

The compact fluorescent was once the darling of green lighting, but according to draft European Union regulations mandating strict new regulations for lighting from September 2020, CFL won’t be efficient enough anymore and will be effectively banned. Never the most popular light bulb with its awkward shape and need for toxic mercury, the CFL simply can’t meet the new requirement for lights to deliver 85 lumens per watt or better. (In Australia the phasing out of halogen light bulbs to align with the revised EU standards was agreed to by the COAG Energy Council in April 2018. Halogen will be removed from the Australian marketplace where there is an equivalent energy efficient LED alternative available.)

No special provision

CFL’s slow warm up won’t be missed, and consumers bought them begrudgingly, but the same can’t be said about tungsten halogen with some users of halogen who were exempted from earlier legislation alarmed to see that the special provision for their industry has not been included in the suggested new direction.

Entertain us

Entertainment lighting or stage lighting has specific requirements that are not easily met by LED. The industry is worried that the specialised halogen lighting they rely on doesn’t currently come anywhere near the proposed standard and that there are not likely to be LED alternatives available by 2020. The UK’s Association of Lighting Designers has launched a campaign – Save Stage Lighting – to reinstate their protection.

LED dominance

What the suggested Ecodesign and new COAG Energy Council rules most clearly demonstrate is that LED is now the only really viable solution for lighting in the future whether you like it or not. From 2020 you will be obliged to purchase lighting that is truly efficient or nothing else. The path is being cleared for LED dominance.