Trump wants to bring back incandescent light bulbs. Factories don’t even make them anymore

[ResidentialBusiness]

In 2019, when the first Trump administration rolled back energy efficiency standards on light bulbs, President Trump said that modern bulbs don’t “make you look as good,” and “as a vain person, that’s very important to me.”

The color of the light was different in the early 2000s, when blue-ish LED bulbs were hitting the market. But current LEDs can largely replicate the warmth of light from old incandescent bulbs. The price to incandescents is now also equivalent. LEDs can last for 15 years, rather than the one year that an older bulb might have lasted. They also use 75% to 90% less energy, shrinking the carbon footprint of buildings. A homeowner who switches to LEDs throughout their home can save thousands of dollars over the lifetime of the bulbs.

The tech is objectively better for consumers. Now, after Biden had restored lighting standards, Trump wants to roll them back again. But for manufacturers, regardless of policy, the transition has already happened: factories are unlikely to ever go back to making outdated incandescent bulbs, which use a completely different process of production. Signify, the global lighting giant that spun off from Philips, told Fast Company that because the transition to LEDs has been underway for more than a decade, it doesn’t expect the trend to reverse.

The industry shift began nearly 20 years ago

The shift began in 2007, when President George W. Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act into law. It included new standards that inefficient incandescent light bulbs couldn’t meet. “By default, it forced a transition in the industry to different technologies,” says Kathy Sterio, president of GE Lighting, which was acquired by Savant, a smart home company, in 2020. The shift to LEDs happened in stages since the technology was expensive at first. Before LEDs became dominant, there was a push for CFLs, but consumers didn’t like the twisted shape or the color of the light; halogen lights, another alternative, weren’t nearly as efficient.

[Photo: GE Lighting/Savant]

LEDs had already been on the market. But the law helped accelerate adoption, Sterio says. As production volume increased, prices dropped, helping adoption happen even faster. In 2019, when Trump loosened efficiency requirements, the transition slowed. But the industry’s move to LEDs was already well underway. When Biden tightened the standards again, the full phaseout of incandescent bulbs happened last year. Manufacturing had already dwindled by that point.

Supply chains can’t easily go back

To make LEDs, the lighting industry had to revamp its supply chains. It was heavily invested in incandescent and fluorescent tech; factories needed different equipment to make the new builds. Making LEDs begins at semiconductor factories, where semiconductor material is grown inside high-pressure chambers. Then it’s turned into thin chips and packaged for use in lights that are assembled elsewhere. It’s nothing like the process of making a simple incandescent bulb, which works by heating up metal wires to produce light. When lighting companies switched, their suppliers couldn’t just make a few tweaks to their production lines.

Now, although there are still some Chinese factories making incandescent bulbs for niche applications (and U.S. law allows for some uses outside regular bulbs in homes), the industry has almost entirely moved on. It’s unlikely the remaining factories could handle much additional volume, Sterio says. And because the Bush-era law passed nearly two decades ago, most of the equipment “has long been disassembled,” she says. “It would be very, very difficult to go back to the incandescent world, just in terms of equipment and know-how.”

LEDs are now the dominant type of lighting globally. Most consumers likely don’t even consider the tech inside the bulbs, says Sterio. “The packaging looks the same, the bulbs look the same—the same shape, the same fit, the same color output,” she says. The most noticeable difference: the computer chip inside means that bulbs can be smart—programmed to change color throughout the day, for example, or to turn on before you get home at night. “I think the LED technology has allowed us to bring a lot more value to your socket than we’ve been able to in the past,” she says.

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