Initiative of the lamp industry to phase-out energy inefficient lighting

The decision of the industry demonstrates that energy efficiency is a way of combating climate change and reduce our energy dependency, but also a good business opportunity", stated Commissioner Piebalgs.

Europe’s lamp manufacturers have today published details of an initiative to phase-out the least efficient household lamps from the European market by 2015. According to industry calculations, this initiative would lead to a 60% reduction of CO2 emissions (23 Mega tons annually) from domestic lighting and savings of 7 billion euros or 63,000 GWh of electricity per year.

The Lamp Industry initiative comes after the Commission presented on October 2006 its Energy Efficiency Action Plan. The plan announced tougher energy performing standards for 14 groups of products, enlarged to 20 at the beginning of the year. Street, office and household lighting are among the products targeted.

The so called "Eco-design" directive gives power to the Commission to set energy efficiency requirements after an economic and environmental assessment and the consultation of a "Stakeholders Forum". On 22 June, the Forum will meet to discuss the envisaged measures on street lighting. Also at the end of the month the Commission will launch the economic and environmental assessment for household lighting.

The next breakthrough in the energy efficiency action plan will be the analysis of the National Energy Efficiency Action Plans that all Member States have to present before 1 July, as requested by the End-use Efficiency and Energy Services Directive. This legislative act establishes indicative targets for energy efficiency for Member States who must present national action plans with sound measures to achieve savings of on average 1% annually over the next 9 years (9% in 9 years).

Energy efficiency is one of the cornerstones of the Energy Policy for Europe. The Energy Efficiency Action Plan adopted by the Commission on 19 October 2006, contains a package of priority measures covering a wide range of cost-effective energy efficiency initiatives. These include actions to make energy-using appliances, buildings, transport and energy generation, transmission and distribution more efficient. Stringent new energy efficiency requirements, promotion of energy services, specific financing mechanisms to support more energy efficient products are also proposed. The plan sets the objective of reducing primary energy consumption by 20% by 2020. If this objective is attained the direct cost of our energy consumption could be reduced by more than €100 billion annually by 2020; around 780 millions tonnes of CO2 emissions will also be avoided yearly.