Changing Light Bulbs

On Oct. 20, 2007, residents of Los Angeles switched off their lights for one hour as part of an energy conservation campaign. Locals were also encouraged to replace at least one standard light bulb with a compact florescent one that consumes less energy and has a longer life span.

If all traditional lighting systems were replaced by energy efficient ones, about 320 million kilowatt hours of electricity would be saved. That translates into 160 million tons of carbon emissions or the annual equivalent of the emissions from all registered vehicles on the road in Germany.

Standard light bulbs are out

All over the globe, there is an increasing awareness of efficient lighting technology. By the year 2015, the old electric-guzzling lamps should completely disappear from the market, according to an industry group that represents Europe's biggest bulb suppliers such as Philips and Osram.

In January this year, California's governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a committed environmentalist, predicted the extinction of the standard light bulb by the year 2012. Even the Australian government wants to banish light bulbs by 2010 in the name of climate protection.

The German environmental ministry has dismissed the Australian initiative in favor of encouraging energy saving devices and letting the market decide which model will become the top runner, according to Ulrich Kelber, deputy parliamentary head of the Social Democrat party.

"We want to establish a system that all suppliers within a category compete to produce the most energy efficient product," he said.

Conflicts and protectionism

The EU has made energy conservation a top priority. At an environmental summit last March, the heads of state of the bloc's 27 member countries supported the ambitious goal of a 20 percent reduction in all EU energy use by the year 2020. One concrete measure they took was to set tighter energy efficient guidelines for light bulbs.

One problem is that many consumers were alarmed by the far higher price tag for energy-saving lighting products made in Europe compared to cheaper imports from China that have swamped the EU market. According to a commission report, 69 percent of all lamps sold in the EU between July 2005 and June 2006 originated from China.

On Oct. 15, the EU commission extended its import tax levy of 66 percent, which has been in place since 2001, for another year. The EU regards the levy as an anti-dumping mechanism that seeks to balance the interests of users, suppliers and importers of energy-saving lamps.

Critics call it protectionism and regard the one-year extension as a victory for the German light bulb manufacturer Osram, which has surpassed rival Philips as the leader in the global lighting industry. The Dutch electric giant Philips produces 80 percent of its energy saving lamps in China for the European market, and is obliged to pay import taxes. Osram imports far less from non-EU countries.

Expansion in Asia

Meanwhile China has become a key global player and not just as a producer of lighting goods, but as a distributor as well. In 2006, even Germany's Osram opened a new regional office in Asia, with Hong Kong as its base. The strong customer demand in Asia was the reason for establishing a base in the region.

"There is an especially strong growth in Asia and we naturally want to strengthen our presence there," said Osram spokeswoman Reglindis Pfeiffer.

Pfeiffer declined to comment on other possible regional bases in East Asia for Osram, which is a subsidiary of Munich-based Siemens. Next year, subsidies in the form of levies on cheap imports will expire again in the EU, but Pfeiffer is confident that Osram will remain competitive.

"We have stood up to competition before and we'll survive," she said.