Posted on 10/07/2009 6:25:04 AM PDT by EBH
AKRON, Ohio -- FirstEnergy Corp. plans to provide nearly 4 million low-energy light bulbs to its residential electricity customers in Ohio.
Akron-based FirstEnergy said Monday that distribution will begin in mid-October. Two compact fluorescent light bulbs will be mailed or hand-delivered to residential customers of Ohio Edison, Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. and Toledo Edison.
The cost of the program will be underwritten by customers, who FirstEnergy said can recover three times the cost through projected energy savings. Reports indicate that there will be a 60 cent charge on customers' bills for the next three years.
The program approved by state regulators is meant to reduce electricity usage and increase awareness of energy conservation.
The CFL bulbs use up to 75 percent less electricity than traditional incandescent bulbs.
The bulbs are not FREE. The bulbs are not being requested by the consumer. I did not seek to buy them and don't want them. And this is false advertising!
You know, I actually gave these dumb bulbs a shot, and they last no longer than the old bulbs, and it’s a pain-in-the-patoot to dispose of them.
Here is the reply I received from my complaint to First Energy, basically they don’t care how people feel, they want their money: Thank you for utilizing FirstEnergy’s Customer Care website for your account needs. Ohio Edison/Toledo Edison/The Illuminating Company is focused on helping our customers lower their electric bills by reducing energy use and increasing the energy efficiency of their homes and businesses. CFLs are simple yet effective tools for saving energy. For example, replacing a single 100-watt incandescent bulb with a CFL of the same light output can reduce your electric bill by $10 a year. Thats $10 for every bulb you switch, so your savings can add up.
If a delivery person comes to your house when you are home, please simply ask them not to deliver the bulbs to your home, and they will move on. If you do receive bulbs either through the mail or at your door feel free to give them to a neighbor, friend or a family member. If you want to dispose of them, check if your municipality permits you to put CFLs in the garbage. If so, seal the bulb in two plastic bags and put it into the outside trash, or other protected outside location, for the next normal trash collection. If not, you will need to properly recycle the bulbs. CFL recycling is available free of charge at The Home Depot stores or your municipality might have other CFL recycling programs available.
This CFL program is part of a statewide effort under Ohios new energy law (Senate Bill 221) to reduce the amount of electricity customers use. As with most state-mandated programs that are designed to benefit all residential customers such as energy efficiency programs and environmental projects the costs incurred by the utilities to implement the program are included in residential customer rates. So all customers share the costs of the programs over a period of several years.
Sincerely,
Rachel Customer Service
I’m on my second year on my bulbs....They last and last and last.....And my electric use did go down.
I wish electrical utilities, given their monopoly status, could be legally prevented in engaging in any business that detracts from their ability to produce power at a reasonable cost to consumers and a healthy profit for them. I am tired of my bill going up year after year to pay for crap that has nothing to do with power.
I plan on simply writing on the box....
Return to Sender.
...drop them off at FIRSTENERGY.....(in the middle of the night)
You can get them for $2 a bulb in packages of 3 at Walmart.
I like CFLs as well, for the same reasons you cite. But I am sure we both agree that people should be free to buy whatever bulbs they wish to use.
Mine don’t last. I was actually told to replace all my fixtures.
I have a standard bulb in my house that’s going on FIVE YEARS! So what.
You can get them for $2 a bulb in packages of 3 at Walmart.
They're using the same variant of mathematics that the federal government uses.
The other half of this is they are saying the bulbs are FREE! They are not FREE!
Not surprising, since it sounds like this is being driven by an overbearing government mandate imposed on the utility.
I've only used 4 cfl bulbs. Each has burned out within a month.
Is this unusual? I don't have any problem in the same fixtures with incandescent (real ;0) bulbs. They last and last....
Cut power to government offices then. Problem solved.
Well, CFLs are not ideal for all lights. CFLs won't work properly with any light that uses a dimmer of any kind, or any light that is on a motion detector or low light sensor trigger because those things do not completely cut off power to the bulb. With incandescent bulbs this is not a problem because there isn't enough power to light the bulb, but with CFLs, the electronics which are in the base of the bulb will get damaged.
I have CFLs for all of my light bulbs, but for my fixtures which are on dimmers, I stick with traditional incandescent bulbs.
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