BUYING GUIDE TO 
ENERGY-EFFICENT LIGHTING PRODUCTS
BUYING GUIDE TO
ENERGY-EFFICENT LIGHTING PRODUCTS
Lighting accounts for 20 to 25 percent of all electricity sold in the U.S., according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). With Americans paying eight cents per kilowatt hour, energy-efficient lighting is starting to look very appealing to consumers. And because energy costs can also add up quickly from frequently-used appliances, small changes can equal big-time savings.
Compact fluorescent lights (CFLs), the most popular entry in the field, use a quarter of the energy to produce the same amount of light as incandescents, then produce significantly less thermal energy, and eliminate bulb changes to about once a decade. One bulb CFL can keep a dozen used incandescents out of landfills.
In the early 1980s, CFLs emerged as oddly-shaped, expensive, hard-to-fit bulbs whose appeal was elusive. Today, CFLs have not only captured 10 percent of the world market for lighting capacity (over 500 million are now in use), but their size, fit and function are much more diverse, bringing far fewer complaints from consumers. Indeed, Japan now gets over 80 percent of its home lighting from compact fluorescents.
Article originally published in E/The Environmental Magazine
By Tracey Rembert
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