Zubiri files bill phasing out incandescent bulbs by ’10

Sen.Juan Miguel Zubiri has filed a bill proposing the nationwide phase out of incandescent bulbs by 2010. 

In Senate Bill 2065, the discarding of these bulbs, Zubiri said, would result to the savings on avoided annual greenhouse gas emissions of  about  two million tons.

He said this is equivalent to taking 250,000 cars off the road, or planting two million trees a year.

“The total switch to compact fluorescent lamps  (CFLs) would mean that the country can cut its electricity demand by 2,000 megawatts (MW) equivalent to electricity generated by six power plants,” he said. 

On a voluntary basis, he said greater savings will be realized once government offices, schools, hospitals and other public buildings and infrastructure totally  switch to CFLs.

Zubiri explained that whenever government wants the private sector to do something, “we will need a law to compel them and lay the ground work for easier compliance both among consumers and manufacturers of incandescent lamps.

With the phase-out, commercial and industrial establishments will bring greater benefits for themselves, the environment and government’s finances with reduced demand for fossil fuels such as imported oil and crude, he added.

 “The 130-year old incandescent bulb technology of inventor Thomas Alba Edison has outlived its use for most of our activities. Incandescent bulbs are wasteful because 80 percent of the energy is lost in the form of heat, with only 20 percent electricity used to produce light. Likewise, experts computed that the electricity needed to power one million incandescent bulbs is equal to the power generated by a 50 megawatt power plant built at the cost of $50 million,”  Zubiri said.

Exemptions on the phase-out of incandescent bulbs provided for in SB 2065 cover only a few, such as for medical and scientific purposes. 

Of 16.48 million families in the country, the low income classes or around 8.6 million families earning the equivalent of the minimum wage and below would benefit the most since electricity for lighting accounts for 80 percent of their electricity bills, Zubiri noted.

He said with 97 percent electrification, the country has over 10.4  million households in urban and rural areas using electricity for lighting. Regardless of their annual family income, these households would cut 80 percent of their electric bills by approximately four-fifths, or enjoy reduced electricity expenditures by around 64 percent. 

“The savings is the result of advances in technology,” Zubiri said. A 15-watt CFL gives the same lumens or has the same lighting capacity as a 60-watt incandescent bulb. Most important is that a CFL uses 80 percent less electricity used by a 60-watt incandescent light bulb.