Energy saving products, efficiency and definition
April 24, 2008
Energy saving products, efficiency and definition. Energy saving products, it’s all about the efficiency of the energy saving product and the amount of power it consumes. Basically an energy saving product is any product that requires less energy to operate than a similar product that is not energy saving
Here is an example; a normal light bulb is not as efficient as a fluorescent bulb, given the fact that the former will consume 75 watts of energy to emit the same amount of light as the fluorescent bulbs energy consumption of around 18 watts.
One could say that the compact fluorescent is 4 times as efficient as the incandescent bulb. This is why people are changing all the bulbs in their house to compact fluorescent, as the power savings add up considerably.
Having said all that, it’s no good replacing all the light bulbs in your house, if you are also going to sit in front of an electric radiator all day, which consumes around 2400 watts of energy!
It is the total energy that is measured by the electricity meter in watt/hours that accounts for the energy consumed, so it is better to replace the higher energy devices for lower energy ones that do the same job for maximum gain in efficiency, not the lower energy ones which tend to be replaced first.
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As someone who sells light bulbs for a living, I am less enthusiastic than most about compact fluorescent bulbs. This is due to the fact that the ones currently available contain significant amounts of mercury. If one of these bulbs should break inside of a person’s home, it could cause a challenging disposal situation. It is my belief that the technology should progress to a point at which the mercury levels are low or nonexistent before people changeover their entire homes. Another consideration is that as these bulbs burn out, they will most likely be thrown away as though they are normal rubbish and landfills will have incredibly high levels of mercury in their soil as a result.
Most CFLs today on the market contain less than 5mgs of mercury and there are CFL options out there that contain as little as 1.5mgs of mercury- which can hardly be called a “significant amounts of mercury” considering that many item in your home contain 100s of times more of mercury including your computer. Mercury levels in CFLs can never be “nonexistent” since mercury is a necessary component of a CFL and there is no other known element that is capable of replacing it. But CFLs actually prevent more mercury from entering the environment. According to the Union of Concerned Scientist, “a coal-fired power plant will emit about four times more mercury to keep an incandescent bulb glowing, compared with a CFL of the same light output”.