The brightest news in fluorescent lighting is here. Subcompact fluorescent lamps (sub-CFLs) offer consumers an energy-saving alternative to ordinary incandescent bulbs at a size that will fit nearly every light fixture in the house.

This is no ordinary light bulb! When you replace an ordinary incandescent lamp with a sub-CFL, you’ll get the same amount of high-quality, good-color-rendition light but you’ll only be using one-fourth to one-third as much energy. Subcompact fluorescent lamps: up to 7 times longer than incandescent light bulbs; screw in to conventional sockets and fit inside most existing fixtures, with lengths as short as 4.7 inches; and save more than $15 per year on average, which means the money you save on your electricity bills may pay for the cost of the lamp in less than a year.

Did you know?
In the United States there are more than 750 million incandescent light bulbs in use right now. Replacing just one of these incandescent light bulbs with a subcompact fluorescent lamp can save enough electricity to keep up to half a ton of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere over the lifetime of the lamp. Buzzing, flickering fluorescent tubes are a thing of the past. Today’s fluorescent lights provide the color and light quality similar to standard incandescent bulbs and they have such high energy performance that payback periods are usually less than a year. Produced by several manufacturers, this new generation of fluorescent lamps is shorter in length, so they fit in places the older compact fluorescent lamps couldn’t. At 4.7 to 6.8 inches long, the sub-CFLs are comparable to ordinary incandescent bulbs, and, because they have screw-in bases like traditional light bulbs, there is no need to purchase converters.