Article / A New Era for Lighting: Lighting Design Post Bulb Ban
Within 2 years of writing this article, the familiar shape of the light bulb as we know it will cease to be commercially available.
Designed by Thomas Edison (or Joseph Swann, depending on who you listen to), the incandescent light bulb works by running an electric current through a piece of resistive wire encapsulated within the familiar glass bulb to create light. It has become an iconic symbol to innovation and, literally, brilliant ideas. It is much more than that though, it is arguably the nicest source of electric light available to us, and soon it may be gone.
2009 saw the introduction of EU legislation stating that all frosted lamps must be of class A energy standard and hence sounding the death knell for all frosted incandescent lamp sources. The EU reasons that compact fluorescent lamps offer the same quality of light as frosted incandescent sources! This year has seen the phasing out of the 60W version.
According to the EU ruling, there are no replacements for clear incandescent lamps so these can remain in circulation. However, the UK seems to be ahead of itself in this instance as the voluntary phasing out of all incandescent lamps is happening. At the end of this year we will also loose the 40W GLS lamp.
