The one thing that is good about incandescent light bulbs is that they emit heat other than the light they are made to give.
While that is a good thing in climes that experience low temperatures as a part of the yearly weather circle, it is not really
something that those that have a routine temperature value of 30 degree C and above will relish in anyway particularly when the
wattage of the bulb begins to climb up to 100 watts and above. I have a theory though that it keeps the level of moisture down
if the area is prone to high humidity levels so that is another good thing.
The other thing that is a disadvantage to the use of incandescent light bulbs is the issue of power consumption. How? you may ask
then let me explain. The first assumption is that power supply in the area of use is constant i.e. at 110V or 240V which is required
to ensure that the bulb is functioning properly. The next thing to look at is the power rating. a 40W bulb is smaller that a 60W bulb
but bigger than a 20W bulb. which constant voltage and varying wattage, and using a basic power formula of
Current I x Voltage V = Power W
It means a 20W bulb will consume 0.08A or 0.18A, a 40W type will consume 0.17A or 0.36A
When this is multiplied by 60 min The value of current drawn and therefore the value of power drawn increases for the quantity of bulbs
lit and how long they are on for and what the wattage is. This adds up when the cost of electricity is not just from the public grid but
self generated through the use of inverters and power generators.
I already hear the cry about how power generator consumes a fixed amount of petrol and that should not matter. I respectfully beg to disagree
and present my reasons for doing so.
1, Generators are rated. This means they have capacity and limit in terms of the load they can support.
2, The high the load on the generator the more the consumption of fuel experienced as the generator will speed to to maintain its rated
capacity output and so consume more fuel per hour than for a lighter load on the same system.
So if you have a generator rated 2000W and you have ten 100W bulbs put on, the combined power consumption of those bulbs is 1000W which is
half of the capacity of the system, with a few more equipment powered, it is easy to attain the capacity of generator with half of the load
being consumed by lighting.
The same principle applies to the inverter but it is more pronounced here because the battery capacity in this case is finite and as current
drawn or power consumed increases, the runtime of the system reduces sharply, this the original equipment manufacturers OEM are quick to point
out.
So if you have a 1000W inverter system with the same set of light bulbs, your total reserve power will be depleted in about an hour which
definitely is not funny when the cost of setting up the system is put into the equation.
So the way out of spending some much power and money on illumination is to do a simple thing, that is change out the light bulb to types that
help minimize cost and give the same utility. Use energy-saving bulbs or compact fluorescents lamps CFL.
Energy-saving bulbs or CFLs are bulbs designed to give illumination similar to the equivalent rating in incandescent bulb with way less power consumption
so an energy saver bulb that gives the equivalent of 100W illumination may consume about 15W of power. so using our example, that will cost
150 watts to provide the same illumination but less stress on the system which means the inverter may now last for about 7-9 hours and the generator
can no run longer putting more money in your pocket.
The down side though is that it does not provide as much heat as the incandescent bulb and a lot of people cite that as a reason for not wanting to use
it. As I already acknowledged in the opening, it depends on where you are and what the unique challenges are.
But in some time, there may be no more incandescent bulbs to buy as the manufacturers may start focusing on improving on the existing energy-saver
types as reported here and here as well as this