The paper presents a novel high efficiency half-bridge current-source parallel-resonant electronic ballasts modular design with an independent preheating circuit. The independent preheating circuit stops after 0.5 seconds of filament preheating. The windings of the preheat transformer couple with filaments of the lamps to reduce power loss. Based on the use of four F32T8 linear fluorescent lamps, the experimental results show Ballast Luminous Efficiency (BLE) performance with three kinds of starting signature: Instant-start, rapid-start and programmed-start. The programmed-start electronic ballasts comply with 2014 DOE Ballast Luminous Efficiency to save energy for lighting and are able to replace the traditional rapid-start electronic ballasts directly.