Realizing that consumers have long trusted the Energy Star brand for products that will save them energy and money, the two agencies responsible for the joint program, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), currently are taking steps to strengthen and improve it.
Last month, for example, EPA released the Final Draft of a new Energy Star product specification for Luminaires, intended to replace the Residential Light Fixtures (V4.2) and Solid State Lighting Luminaires (V1.1) specifications.
This spec has an effective date of October 1, 2011.
As before, excluded from the new specs are lighting products such as LED tube lights intended to replace fluorescent lamps and LED fixtures intended to replace linear fluorescent fixtures. Street area and parking garage lights are currently excluded from the Energy Star category but efforts are underway to include these product groups in the future.
As well as finalizing the Luminaires specification, EPA has been engaged in the revision of Energy Star program elements for all product categories, so as to meet third-party certification requirements which took effect on January 1, 2011.
Until this year Energy Star was a self-declaration program where manufacturers could submit their own test reports directly to EPA. Now, as of Jan 1, the EPA will require that all new submissions from manufacturers participating in the Energy Star program be reviewed by a third party Certification Body (CB), and that qualification testing be performed under specific criteria using EPA recognized labs. The certification body will review and send the report to EPA.
Laboratory test results must be produced using the specific models of LED package, LED module or LED array and LED driver (i.e. LED light engine) that will be used in production.
Follow up verification testing will have to be conducted annually on 10% of qualified products in the Energy Star program to insure a product’s continued compliance with the requirement after its initial qualification. Each CB will manage verification testing of the product they have certified.
These test reports center on IES (Illuminating Engineering Society) LM (Lighting Measurement) -79 (Electrical and Photometric Measurements of Solid State Lighting Products) and LM-80 (Measuring Lument Maintenance of LED Light Sources).
These tests detail such specifications as efficacy, luminous flux, chromaticity coordinates, intensity distribution, CCT (Correlated Color Temperature) and CRI (Color Rendering Index) values at all tested temperatures. Rapid cycle stress tests, temperature and electrical surge and transient protection across all SSL products are also included.
As an example consider LED light engine efficacy. Installed in the luminaire the source must now meet or exceed 65 lm/W per LED light engine (Until Sept. 1, 2013) and 70 lm/W per (after Sept. 1, 2013).
Similarly, Solid State LED packages, LED arrays or LED modules must meet the following L70 (Electrical and Photometric Measurements of Solid-State Lighting Products) rated lumen maintenance life values:
25,000 hours for residential grade indoor luminaires;
35,000 hours for residential grade outdoor luminaires; and
35,000 hours for commercial grade luminaires
There is also a mandatory 6,000 hour lumen maintenance test, which equates to about a 9 month duration. However, EPA understands that waiting 9 months can create economic hardships so manufacturers will be allowed to apply for a conditional early label option at 3,000 hours of testing when they supply LM 80 test data and in situ temperature test data. The conditional label is based on subsequent completion of the rest of the test.
The full Energy Star Luminaires specification is available from the Energy Star Luminaires web page, which also carries comments on Draft 1 of the specification (released May 10, 2010) and Draft 2 (released October 4, 2010).
Information on third party partners, Accreditation Bodies, Certification Bodies, and Laboratories can be found here.
