Editorial | Ban incandescent bulbs

Fifteen years ago, the Cuban government donated four million compact fluorescent bulbs to Jamaica. It was intended to be the start of the phasing out of less energy-efficient incandescent lamps and contribute to Jamaica’s effort to reduce its bill for imported oil.

Unfortunately, not much has changed since the launch of that scheme. Except that in Jamaica, the ‘Cuban light bulb project’ is used as shorthand for perceived public-sector corruption although the allegations to this effect were never proved in a court of law.

Kern Spencer, the junior energy minister who was in charge of the project, and his personal assistant, Coleen Wright, were freed of conspiracy and fraud after no-case submissions by their lawyers. The two had been accused of benefiting through companies operated by connected parties from the J$176.5 million the Government spent on distributing the Cuban gift bulbs.

Jamaica’s failure to advance the initiative, the scandal notwithstanding, has new and worrying resonance in the face of Barbados’ decision last week to effectively ban the importation and manufacturing of incandescent bulbs and in the larger context of the threat posed to the Caribbean by global warming and climate change. Put another way, in the absence of a fully decarbonised grid, more efficient lighting fixtures means burning less fossil fuel to power them, which translates to less greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. That, in turn, might help in keeping the rise in Earth’s temperature to below 1.5º Celsius by the end of the century and the catastrophe that failure could mean.

REDUCE ELECTRICITY LOSS

Further, the domestic light and power company, Jamaica Public Service (JPS), argues that the elimination of incandescent bulbs would help to reduce the amount of electricity it loses annually through theft, and, therefore, would mean savings to consumers.

Surprisingly, there is no readily available analysis of what amount of electricity that the JPS sells to its customers (3.1 million MWh in 2020) is used for lighting. Neither is there a breakdown of what kind of bulbs people have in their homes or businesses. But it is clear that a migration to light-emitting diodes (LED) fixtures (which weren’t quite as common or available at the time of Cuba’s gift of the light bulbs) would help to lower energy consumption.

Since the light bulb scandal, not only has the LED technology advanced, but the product, in nominal terms, has become cheaper. More critically, LED bulbs are vastly more economical to use than the old incandescent ones, which work by electricity heating a filament, causing it to glow, creating light.

The difference here is the amount of electricity that is used to produce the light in incandescent bulbs. For instance, a 40-watt incandescent bulb gives 400 to 500 lumens (measurement of light). For the same amount of light in a fluorescent lamp, you would require an eight to 12-watt fixture. In an LED, the same number of lumens would be achieved with five to six watts. And an LED bulb lasts 20 times, or more, longer than an incandescent fixture.

Put another way, you burn substantially less electricity for the same amount of light, which saves money: by the consumer who pays the power company for the electricity; and in the foreign exchange that isn’t spent to import the fossil fuels – diesel and LNG – that are still mostly used to fire Jamaica’s power plants.

Additionally, by the JPS’s estimate, between 150,000 and 180,000 (17 per cent to 20 per cent based on 2011 census data) of Jamaica’s households steal electricity, costing it around 10 per cent of its output. They value the theft is in the region of US$200 million annually. The company would prefer that there be no stealing. It would, however, help if the theft was less. In that event, the ‘illegal extractors’ of electricity would require less power if they used LED bulbs.

REMAIN POPULAR

Part of the problem, though, is that LED lamps remain, in nominal terms, more expensive than incandescent ones. So in the absence of consumers analysing the economic cost of using incandescent bulbs, they still remain popular. And for people who do not pay for electricity, there is no price signal for them to switch to more power-efficient light sources.

Put differently, there needs to be an obvious disincentive for the use of incandescent bulbs. That can happen by placing prohibitive taxes on them or phasing them out altogether. Which is what Barbados is intending to do, starting in the new year with a ban on bulbs that emit less than 15 lumens per watt. In 2020, Trinidad and Tobago also placed restrictions on the importation of incandescent bulbs. And in a project similar to the Cuban-supported programme in Jamaica, the Government distributed more than a million LED bulbs to Trinidad and Tobago households.

These initiatives are in keeping with a decision by the Caribbean Community that members start the phasing out of incandescent bulbs by 2019. That was in keeping with the community’s drive for energy efficiency, and, of course, becoming carbon neutral – on which Barbados has set its sight within a decade.

Jamaica has done better than most of its regional peers with respect to installing renewable energy sources, including solar and wind. Nonetheless, the banning of incandescent bulbs is a low-hanging fruit waiting to be picked.