Drivers of Market Transformation in Domestic Lighting

Abstract

Hungary has experienced one of the most remarkable market successes over the past five years in a key energy-efficiency technology: compact fluorescent lighting. While market shares of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) were negligible half a decade ago, today residential CFL market penetration exceeds that in many industrialised economies, ranking Hungary among the eight countries in Europe with the highest penetration rates. Since substantial efforts are being invested internationally to promote the proliferation of CFLs, the understanding of the Hungarian success can bring us closer to an effective planning of programs and policies designed to transform the markets of energy efficient technologies around the world. Therefore, the paper’s goal is to provide an insight into the driving forces which contributed to this outstanding market success, and to investigate how the findings can apply in designing market transformation programs aimed at increasing the penetration of cost-effective energy efficient technologies internationally.