To ban or not to ban?

There is a growing tendency to phase-out and ban inefficient equipment such as lighting, but also low performing household equipment, from the market. Australia advertised such a ban of incandescent lamps some time ago. UK has announced a similar ban and Belgium has shown "yellow card" to household equipment lower than class A.

Fine! But watch out for the risks! Firstly we have to make sure that the alternatives are there. Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) are normally perceived to be a reasonable alternative for the lighting. But some manufacturers are lobbying to keep the prices up. And when the ban takes effect there is also less incentive to work on the performance of the alternative products.

There is no doubt a good reason to change the benchmarks for equipment performance, but in doing so make sure that the pressure is kept on the producers to:

1: Reduce the costs/prices for the alternatives

2: Improve the performance of these.

When choosing to ban equipment it should also be remembered that there are three ways to change the market from the base case to the preferred case. And that all three are needed if the market should be maintained and respond to normal incentives.

• Sell LESS of the bad equipment (which corresponds to banning and Minimum Energy Performance Standards, MEPS)
• Sell MORE of the good equipment (which normally requires labels and branding)
• Develop NEW super-performing equipment (which requires product development)

Or as someone said: "If you want to move the camel you need both the stick and the carrots"