The government strongly supports the energy-saving lamps in the golden period

In China, the government is working to eliminate the last obstacle to this relay – price. Now in China's first-tier cities, as long as it costs a dollar - this is the price of an incandescent lamp, you can buy an energy-saving lamp originally worth 10 yuan. The middle difference is provided by the government. The central government subsidizes 50% and the local government subsidizes 40%. The National Development and Reform Commission plans to promote at least 150 million energy-saving lamps in 2010, which means that the government will provide at least 1.35 billion yuan in subsidies this year.

“This is even cheaper than an incandescent lamp. How could it not be robbed in a big city?” said Shi Yongjun, director of NVC Lighting Brand Management Center. This subsidy allows those who are still stubborn consumers to finally make up their minds, remove the incandescent bulbs hanging from the roof of the house, and replace them with energy-saving lamps that are bright.

Energy-saving lamp production companies are certainly happy to see this scenario. According to Shi Yongjun, foreign governments’ mandatory exit policy for the elimination of incandescent lamps and generous subsidies from the Chinese government are the most important factors in activating the energy-saving lamp market in the past two years. In his NVC lighting, CEO Wu Changjiang made a decision in July to cancel all incandescent lamp business orders. This company has established the world's largest energy-saving lamp production base in Zhejiang, with an annual output of more than 340 million energy-saving lamps, including not only its own brand, but also OEM orders from global leading lighting companies such as GE.

China's oldest lighting company Foshan Lighting (000541) has not yet decided so. The company was founded as the "Foshan Light Bulb Factory" - in that year, every city in China may have a light bulb factory, but most of them have disappeared. Foshan Lighting, as the largest incandescent lamp manufacturer in China, is still only a fruit, but now incandescent Lamp business only accounts for 10% of its total business volume. Guangdong Province, where Foshan Lighting is located, is a major incandescent lamp producer. In 2008 alone, the output of incandescent lamps in Guangdong fell by 29.76% over the previous year.

Turning on the switch can bring the bright incandescent light of the house to people's excitement. On October 21, 1879, the American inventor Thomas Edison turned on the carbon filament as a filament in the laboratory, and the incandescent lamp was born. Humans also bid farewell to the dim light of candlelight and oil and entered the era of light. Edison then established a power station and a transmission grid, which produced incandescent light bulbs and established General Electric (GE) companies to operate its own range of new inventions.

But GE is also bidding farewell to the incandescent lamp that has given it infinite glory. “Energy-saving lighting is a global trend today. In the West, the biggest enemy of high-energy lighting products is consumers’ strong environmental awareness,” said James Gosart, President and CEO of GE Lighting Asia Pacific. Since 2009, GE has invested the largest R&D funds in the field of lighting in the LED (Light Emitting Diode) and OLED fields. LED is recognized as a new generation of light sources after energy-saving lamps.

This may be the most successful environmental protection plan between the global business community and the government. Of course, this is a market plan. The great advantages of energy-saving lamps in terms of technology, the economics of their use, and their integration with current environmental trends have enabled them to obtain the most extensive market. Replacing incandescent lamps with energy-saving lamps can benefit companies and users of lamps and lanterns. With the government's vigorous promotion, the "Edison era" has finally come to an end.

In fact, the popularity of energy-saving lamps may have caused some young people to feel unfamiliar with the term incandescent lamp—that is, tungsten wire with a “W” shape inside, and a transparent glass bulb outside. Over the past 130 years, more than 90% of human light has been provided by such light bulbs. China is an incandescent country. In 2007, China’s incandescent lamp output reached 4.44 billion, accounting for 1/3 of world production.

“In fact, the big city market is now completely the world of energy-saving lamps. Only the hardware stores in some small rural areas have a few incandescent lamps on sale, because consumers will settle accounts—a 40W incandescent lamp requires only a 7W energy saving. Lights are enough, although the price of energy-saving lamps is expensive, but the life expectancy is 6 times that of incandescent lamps. Every year, it also saves a lot of electricity bills. It is all cheaper to save energy.” Chen Jiufeng, a lighting dealer, said.

Chen Jiufeng operates a lighting equipment store. In his store, white energy-saving lamps are placed in the most prominent position. Beijing's Shilihe Lighting City, where his shop is located, is the largest lighting sales center in northern China. This is a place once filled with incandescent lamps, but now it is difficult to find incandescent lamps.

When Edison invented the incandescent lamp, he used carbon filament as filament, and in 1880 he used carbonized bamboo. In the ensuing decades, despite the change in the filament material of incandescent lamps, people found a better material, tungsten instead of carbonized bamboo, but the basic principle of incandescent lamps has not changed - the heat generated by the current passing through the filament, the spiral The filaments continuously collect heat, making the filament temperature above 2000°C. When the filament is in the incandescent state, it glows like a red-hot iron. The higher the filament temperature, the more light is emitted. bright.

However, under this principle, most of the electric energy consumed by incandescent lamps is converted into useless thermal energy, and only about 5% is converted into light energy. Even if such conversion reaches the limit, the conversion rate is only 14%.