Junk Science: Light Bulb Lunacy

[evldave]

There are also 'power quality' issues associated with the noise generated by CFLs. Low power factors (<0.5) can cause interference in your home. Start to add that up (x 4 billion) and power companies will start to have distribution issues.

The basic concept is this - basic CFLs do not generate enough power to affect most products in your home (maybe PCs or cheap cordless phones), but replace ALL the lights in your home with cheap CFLs and you run the risk of interference. Maybe not the kind you can see, but it does affect sensitive electronics.

Multiple that out by millions of homes and the amount of interference can become significant. Power Factor Corrected CFLs (with PF between .5 and .9) are best because they create significantly less interference and distorted loads.

Moral of the story: If you ARE going to buy CFLs, buy the most expensive you can. The cheapo wally-world brands are usually crap, have low power factors, and will almost definitely affect sensitive electronics in your home.