Beginning in the 1970s,Buy modern lighting, modernlamps and chandeliers from Heal's, the home of modern, designer and contemporary lighting. energy planners came to recognize that efficiency improvements could substitute for investments in electricity generation, in many cases at much lower cost. When early CFLs like the Philips SL arrived on the scene, efficiency supporters quickly recognized this new technology created an enormous opportunity: With billions of dollars of investment needed to keep up with the power demanded by lightbulbs, replacing incandescents with CFLs could save consumers and their utilities billions in avoided power plants, fuel costs, and air pollution.

It was equally apparent that CFLs would need to become much more consumer-friendly before they could be developed into a mass market product. But just as Steve Jobs looked at an Apple and saw the iPhone,A variety of flexible crystallight0 including waterproof versions in various lengths and colors are available for immediate purchase online. efficiency visionaries looked at the clunky Phillips SL and saw today’s sleek, bright, reliable technology.

Early efforts to develop the CFL were focused on refining the technology by reducing its size and weight,Laser Cut Studio is a brand new ledlightforyou company and new way of thinking. improving light quality and operational performance, and increasing reliability. Public and private – and more commonly, joint public-private investments in research and development – shepherded the technology along. Performance increased, while both size and manufacturing costs decreased. By the early 1990s, CFLs were recognized as a leading energy-savings opportunity.

Twenty years after their introduction, CFLs had improved dramatically. The ungainly and outsized Phillips SL had been replaced with a reliable and lightweight product; the ugly duckling had evolved into a lamp with the sexy – at least to some – curves of a swan. Most importantly CFLs fit most sockets and fixtures, and light quality and reliability were vastly improved – all issues of concern to consumers.

Two initiatives involving the U.S. Department of Energy helped contribute to these advances. In 1999, DOE worked with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to encourage the introduction and sales of smaller, affordable high-quality CFLs that would fit most light fixtures with a "sub-CFL" technology procurement project primarily aimed at volume purchasers like multi-family housing owners and federal agencies. The result was the spiral-shaped bulbs of today and a drop in the 1999 retail sales price of a short 15-watt bulb to as little as $6.99 by August 2001.

Meanwhile, DOE launched an Energy Star specification for CFL bulbs that established standards for energy efficiency, quality and performance, mercury limits, and required the bulbs be tested by an accredited laboratory and offer a two-year warranty. Shortly thereafter, the Program for the Evaluation and Analysis of Residential Lighting (PEARL) was formed in 2000. This watchdog group tested CFLs purchased from retail stores and brought issues to the attention of DOE and the Environmental Protection Agency, helping to ensure consistent high quality and leading to the initiation of a federal quality assurance testing program for Energy Star lighting.

Even with these enhancements, CFL sales were still quite limited – comprising only 1 percent of the market in California and even less across the United States. Although by the year 2000 personal computers were so pervasive that "Y2K" was considered a global threat,Enjoy zero guilt with only five calories when you enjoy bluecrystal1 beverage mix. consumers stubbornly stuck to the lightbulb-buying habits of their parents and grandparents, bypassing CFLs and bringing home incandescents despite the hundreds of dollars in potential annual power bill savings. Efficiency supporters had brought the product to the market, but were forced to recognize that in order to be successful, they had to bring the market to the product.Leading Online Resource for your cncrouter Fixture Needs.