The New Year Brings Better Quality Lighting Choices to California

In California there are more than 600 million sockets for general service and reflector light bulbs and about half of those are still using old incandescent light bulbs.

Giving consumers the choice of better quality light bulbs, three new energy efficiency standards go into effect January 1, 2018.

The standards cover general service light bulbs, general purpose LEDs and small-diameter directional lamps, often used in commercial sites for track lighting.

California opted to permit the federal general service light bulb standard to take effect two years ahead of national adoption. This ensures consumers start saving energy and money earlier. Incandescent and halogen light bulbs won’t be able to meet the standard, leaving the door open to more energy saving light bulbs.

The newer technology of LEDs and compact fluorescents make the light bulb more efficient and last much longer.

To ensure general purpose LEDs continue the trend toward more efficient products without trading off quality features in light bulbs that consumers expect, the Energy Commission adopted standards in 2016. The standards will drive both efficiency and quality improvements, such as minimizing color distortion so that the light bulb can make an object appear as it would under natural light and setting a minimum lifetime requirement of about 10 years.

Light bulbs meeting the standard are readily available.

With the LED and small-diameter directional lamp standards, consumers will save more than $4 billion in aggregate over the first 13 years and conserve enough electricity to power the equivalent of about 400,000 average homes.

For more information please see the news release from the 2016 LED and small-diameter directional lamp adoption and frequently asked questions on the lighting standards.