Legislation against traditional light bulbs

The traditional incandescent lamp is inefficient, turning only 10 percent of the input energy into light. Even so, the incandescent lamp still accounts for 50 to 70  percent of the global lighting market, in terms of the number of units. In Sweden, around 25 percent of total energy consumption in companies and the public sector goes for lighting purposes.

As early as 2007, Australia decided that incandescent lamps should be phased out by 2010. The EU also decided on a gradual phasing out and ban on the sale of traditional incandescent lamps. The first stage came in 2009, when all frosted incandescent lamps were banned. By September 2012, all incandescent lamps will be banned within the EU. In the American state of California, discussions on phasing out incandescent lamps have been going on for some time. In Sweden, the saving is estimated at about 2 TWh, which corresponds to halving the electricity used for home lighting. This corresponds to the amount of electricity needed to heat about 80,000 electrically heated detached houses for a year. In the EU, savings of about 40 TWh are expected.

Discussion is also going on in many other countries and regions. A similar development is also going on in the lighting industry. At the same time, the fluorescent tube based lamps containing mercury are still being produced due to a general exemption from the ban on quicksilver. A ban could only be introduced when there was a commercially available low-energy alternative on the market.