7.3 Reliability of electronic ballasts

There is little quantitative evidence for the reliability of electronic ballasts. One statement speaks of a failure rate below 2% per 1000 hours of operation. That sounds quite nice, but for an average supermarket with 3000 h/a of operation this amounts to 6% dropouts per year. Under constant duty, like in a subway, it already means replacing more than 1 per every 6 ballasts annually. Considering this, it seems slightly strange to find this figure in a publication speaking very much in favour of electronic ballasts.

It may be rather unspectacular if the manufacturers of certain dedicated plant to be discussed further below do not state a single word in favour of electronic ballasts, since their products are applicable to magnetic ballasts only. But it is very well worth considering why official surveyors, inspectors and site electricians have serious qualms with the use of electronic ballasts. The use of electronic ballasts is, from today’s viewpoint, inevitable if special high-end control functions including dimming are required, for as mentioned, dimming techniques for magnetic ballasts do no longer match today’s ideas of functionality and comfort, such as in conference centres. Yet, for the common »area lighting« in warehouses, supermarkets, ordinary offices, subways, schools, industry, especially in EMC sensitive environments or under extreme temperatures or vibrations, the best EEI class (see section 8 below) of magnetic ballasts will be the optimum choice. Their failure rates are next to zero in nearly all environments, as long as indicated maximum ambient temperatures are not substantially exceeded, while where a lot of electronics is integrated a lot can fail. Just like an instance of »the irony of destiny«, a severe power quality problem occurred during a power quality conference in a large modern conference building in Brussels. Sophisticated electronic lighting control got out of control and turned off the lighting every other minute. The conference centre management felt quite embarrassed and compensated the loss of usability to their client with a 50% price reduction. This financial loss may equal the electricity consumption of 1000 conferences and the energy savings achievable with high-tech lighting, if working properly, of at least 4000 conferences. It is evident that energy saving is not the prevalent reason for installing such technique in a conference room. It is the opportunity to provide optimal lighting for virtually everything one might want to do in a conference room. Even so, the loss of reputation caused by such embarrassing occurrence is probably a lot worse than through providing a less sophisticated, less versatile, less impressive technique but which just functions.

An advantage at least of many electronic ballasts is that they function with any frequency including DC. This cannot be expected from a magnetic ballast. Just by coincidence, a European ballast rated 58 W, 230 V, 50 Hz would do its job just as fine in an American 277 V 60 Hz office environment, but that is sure pure fluke in this individual case.

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