The Haney Energy Saving Group

Overall energy usage in the city grew at a slower pace than the average economic growth in the 10 years to 2013, new data shows. And from 2012 to last year, consumption of electricity alone fell 1.1 per cent. One green group welcomed the official figures as a sign that the city was getting serious about saving energy. The statistics reflected public awareness of reducing energy consumption, Edwin Lau Che-fung, head of advocacy and education at Friends of the Earth, said. "The slight drop is in a positive direction," he said. "It reflects a power-smart attitude among consumers and businesses." The city recorded an overall energy balance last year of 300,284 terajoules, down from 322,938 terajoules in 2008, the Census and Statistics Department said in its annual report.

Ever since government regulations began phasing out the traditional light bulb in 2012, the once-simple visit to the lighting aisle has become an exercise in navigating a dizzying array of choices and terminologies, especially for new kinds of compact fluorescents and LEDs. Now, those choices are about to become even more complicated. Two start-up companies are poised to begin selling bulbs that use entirely different technologies - one borrowed from heavy industry and the other from old-fashioned televisions - but meet the new energy standards. Whether they can capture customers who remain stubbornly wedded to incandescent light is anybody's guess. But that both have come this far is an indication of how unsettled the consumer lighting market remains, despite years of promotion for the new energy-saving options. "It's going to be a really long putt to try to replace the incandescent," said Mark Rea, director of the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. "People hate change of any kind. We make light sources today that are better than incandescent by any metric at delivering the benefits you're expecting from lighting. But it's different." Indeed, incandescent bulbs - whether leftover store inventory of standard lights or halogen models that meet the new regulations, which went fully into effect in January - outsell other types by far at big-box stores like Home Depot and Lowe's, lighting executives there say. In the last quarter of 2013, according to statistics from the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, incandescent bulbs accounted for 65 percent of shipments from manufacturers, with the remainder consisting of mainly compact fluorescents.