Philips Advance HID ballasts are available to operate the wide variety of metal halide, high pressure sodium and low pressure sodium lamps available in today’s marketplace.Like fluorescent, HID lamps are gas discharge lamps. Light is produced by an arc discharge between two electrodes located at opposite ends of an arc tube within the lamp’s outer glass envelope. The ballast is the lamp’s power supply; its purpose is to provide proper starting and operating voltage and current to initiate and sustain this arc