In article , The Daring Dufas wrote:
Dave Houston wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote:

CFL units also
use switching power supplies to operate the lamp and a wholesale change
over to CFL lighting could cause problems in older buildings.

I'm not sure how much of a problem this will be. Most commercial/industrial
buildings use tubular fluorescents and/or high pressure sodium lights which
save far more energy than CFLs so there's no incentive (nor mandate) to
switch to CFLs. (Changing from magnetic to electronic ballasts may be a
problem but I don't know how prevalent this is.)

As lighting is only 9% of residential energy use, even changing to 100%
CFL/LED with SMPS may not be a major problem. Electic rates already embed
charges for residential power factor issues (rather than use demand
metering). It's likely that the utilities will merely ask for rate increases
to compensate for their increased costs related to harmonics.

I was thinking more along the lines of older apartment buildings in
large cities, especially very old ones. The building may have its
own transformer in the basement and if it was never updated since
the 1920's or 1930's, there could be some problems caused by the
asymmetrical loads.

CFLs are symmetric loads.

- Don Klipstein )