According to EPE magazine a single MP made the suggestion, it was never government policy, and it has never gone any further. It's just that the newspapers jumped on it as their usual scare mongering!.

I think you'll find that the claimed 2% being sent up the chimney by devices on standby completely pales in comparison to the multi-megawatts that go up the vapor towers at generation stations when supply exceeds demand (don't forget that in order for the system to work thermal output always exceeds demand). Water heaters etc can only soak up so much load after that, its up the really big chimney as heat.

Want to 'save' electricty? Make a generation plant that can pump out up to 1500MW but is able to switch down to only 50MW of thermal output within 20 seconds (it has to be able to instantaneously switch back up to full output too), then you'll make some real savings.

[quote=Daveoc64;17983112]I'm 99% sure that EU law would stop our government doing this.

Sounds like you think the cameroon is already in power?

However if you take a light tube say 100 watt, the starter will take at least an hours worth of juice every time it is switched on.

Me ill stick to my wood burner, we seem to be labled as criminals using power, how long before the light Police arrive on the scene, anyhow you guys with big plasmas wont need extra heat in winter, it seems.

Bob, yes you guessed it, non Sky subber.

Britannia has the right for certain to stop products being sold here and potentially imported (guns, drugs, etc are legal in some EU countries), we shouldn't though, but I wouldn't mind trying the EU on this.

No light bulb or fluro tube operates like that. Incandescents do have a bit of inrush during startup but its more like a few seconds worth of extra consumption. Fluros do eat up a bit of power during start (using old style starter + cap + inductor, 'electronic' ballasts use HF choppers and strike the tube with little loss) but even then its only 40 seconds worth of normal running power (psst, you don't watch Mythbusters, do you ).