Why is it necessary to phase-out incandescent bulbs?
Lighting may represent up to a fifth of a household’s electricity consumption. There is a four to five-fold difference between the energy consumption of the least efficient and the most efficient lighting technologies available on the market. This means that upgrading the lamps could reduce a household’s total electricity consumption by up to 10-15% and save easily 50€ / year (taking into account the purchasing cost of lamps).[1] Thanks to the regulation, EU citizens are expected to save close to 40 TWh (roughly the electrictity consumption of Romania, or of 11 million European households, or the equivalent of the yearly output of 10 power stations of 500 megawatts) and reduce CO2 emission by about 15 million tons of per year. The regulation is thus expected to reinject about 5-10 billion euros in to the EU economy.
