What's A Lumen?

As you’ve probably heard, new energy efficient lighting standards are set to take effect in 2012. As part of this, you’ll no longer buy lights according to how much energy they use (watts), but rather by how bright they are (lumens). Here’s an idea of what lumen to shop for based on the watts you’re used to buying:

WATTS - - LUMENS

40 - - 450

60 - - 800

75 - - 1100

100 - - 1600

The Federal Trade Commission will be using new labels to help you find the right light bulb you’re looking for. They kind of look like nutrition labels.

The new standards will be phased in thru 2014 and will require all light bulbs to use anywhere from 25-80% less energy. You can already buy energy saving CFL, LED and incandescent bulbs today, but these new standards will be applied to all light bulbs.

According to the Department of Energy, the potential energy and money savings is huge. Upgrading 15 inefficient incandescent bulbs in your home could save you about $50 per year. Since most of the bulbs also have longer life spans, you'll continue to save into the future. Nationwide, lighting accounts for about 10% of home electricity use. With new standards, U.S. households could save nearly $6 billion dollars in 2015 alone.

These new standards have stirred up a lot of controversy. Is the government going too far by enforcing these standards? Maybe, maybe not. I can appreciate both sides of the argument. But bottom line, we are smarter about energy now than we were before and we have the technological know-how to make a better light bulb that produces the same light, using less energy. That’s called progress.