The incandescent light bulb will soon become a thing of the past. But surprisingly few people seem to be familiar with its likely replacement, the CFL.

Chelan County PUD has provided free compact fluorescent light bulbs — CFLs — to customers at public events including the county fair in Cashmere last September and a Wenatchee Wild hockey game in January. The idea is that by providing samples, customers will get used to the curlicue bulbs and learn more about them.

PUD employees say they’re surprised that many people have never heard of CFLs. Then again, others tell us they’ve been using CFLs in at least some of their fixtures.

The federal energy bill signed in 2007 called for eliminating incandescent bulbs beginning three years from now. Compact fluorescent bulbs will be phased in starting with 100-watt bulbs in January 2012 and ending with 40-watt bulbs in January 2014. By 2020, all bulbs must be 70 percent more efficient.

Compact fluorescent bulbs already meet the 70 percent efficiency standard. They cost more — a compact fluorescent goes for about $2, compared to about 50 cents for an incandescent. But the payoff comes in reduced energy costs and longer life. The new rules will save consumers $40 billion in energy and other costs from 2012 to 2030, avoid construction of 14 coal-fired power plants, and cut global-warming emissions by at least 51 million tons of carbon annually, according to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy.

Chelan County residents enjoy electric rates much lower than most of the nation, so realizing a return on investment takes a little longer here. At today’s costs, using a CFL saves about $11 in energy costs over one bulb’s lifetime. But there are other advantages: All of the electricity used with a CFL goes to lighting; with an incandescent, most of the electricity is used to produce heat. And you won’t have to replace bulbs nearly as often, which is especially useful in hard-to-reach areas.

Read more about compact fluorescent light bulbs on the Energy Star Web site.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 11:12 am and is filed under Energy conservation, Lighting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.