Time to Retire Edison's Old Bulb?
Time to Retire Edison's Old Bulb?
Come up with an alternative to the old 60-W lamp that consumes 30 percent less energy and lasts three times as long - and produce it in such large volumes that the lamp can retail at low prices! This is the tough challenge that the world's lamp-makers have been given by a group of energy agencies and major buyers in Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK. Orders of nine million lamps are at stake.
The technology procurement competition was announced In April at the Hannover Light Fair.
The European Buyer group, consisting of retail chains, hotel chains, electric utilities, churches, and public bodies, represents a demand that translates into potential sales volumes considered to be large enough to get lamp manufacturers to compete for the prestigious contract. The project is being launched as part of the International Energy Agency (IEA) programme on demand-side management (DSM).
LARGEST BUYER GROUP EVER
"This project is unique" says Hans Nilsson from Sweden, who is chairing the IEA DSM programme. "For the first time, a technology procurement competition for energy-efficient technologies builds on co-operation between buyers and authorities across national borders. There has never been a stronger buyer group stating their interest in purchasing a consumer product that still does not exist".
"The fact that we aim to send one of the traditional symbols of electric energy to the garbage bin, namely Edison's old bulb, adds extra spice to the project", he says.
The European competition is loosely linked to a similar American initiative from the US Department of Defense (DoD), that has issued performance specifications for a lamp similar to the one specified by the European project. In the US, the Department of Defense intends to buy more than 2 million lamps a year over a three-year period. So far, manufacturers have not been very willing to produce the lamp although the technological know-how seems to exist (see, for instance, the article on IRC halogen lamps). The American procurement project has had difficulties getting the manufactuers seriously involved. But with the large international buyer group, the energy agencies behind the project think that manufacturers should be interested in bringing the lamp to the market.
"The lamp is definitely possible to build. We had a prototype built for us that fulfils the specs. But it was bulky and not very pretty", says Paul Davidson, project manager at UK Building Reserach Establishment's implementation branch BRECSU. "Now we want the manfuacturers to do it for us" he adds, and sums up the main question being addressed by the programme: "Are manufacturers willing and able to market the lamp cheaply enough?"
LARGE POTENTIAL
The improved incandescent lamp will not be the most energy-efficient alternative to present light bulbs, but it will fill a gap as an alternative to compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) in cases where the latter do not fit into existing luminaires or are cost-effective. The improved lamp will look and function just like an ordinary bulb.
Savings from a single lamp are nothing to write home to mum about. But at least 1.5 billion incandescent lamps are sold in Europe alone each year, so the potential savings are tremendous. If European households were to replace 500 million of their 60-W lamps with the new lamp, total savings would amount to about 10 billion kilowatt hours per year or US$ 1.2 billion.
Given the fact the global annual market for incandescent bulbs is approx. 10 billion units, the global savings potential is great, indeed.
For information, contact:
Paul Davidson, BRECSU
Tel + 44 1923 66 44 37
Fax + 44 1923 66 40 97
E-mail: davidsonp@bre.co.uk
Information on the project, including a complete list of all buyers, can also be obtained at the following web-site: http://www.stem.se