NEMA: Electro Industry October 2010 - 8

LED Replacement Lamps:

Game-Changing

Getting Ready for a

James Brodrick, Lighting Program manager , U.S. department of energy

decade

ig changes are in store for the replacement lamp market, thanks to the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), which calls for the phase-out of low-efficiency lamps.
The first phase, which will be rolled out between 2012 and 2014, will effectively put an end to the Incandescent Age by pointing consumers toward alternatives that are more energy efficient, like compact fluorescent lights (CFL), light emitting diode (LED), and nextgeneration halogen products. But that’s just the beginning. In 2020, those standards will be superseded by an even more stringent set that calls for a minimum efficacy of 45 lm/W (lumens per watt), spurring the entire industry to come out with products that are increasingly more efficient. This will certainly boost the market for LED lighting products, given their tremendous energy-saving potential. But it’s important to keep in mind that because of the newness of the technology, potential has not yet been achieved, despite the rapid pace of development. It’s true that LED lighting products can save energy and provide high-quality lighting in a growing number of applications, but while some of those products meet manufacturer claims and equal or even

exceed their traditional counterparts in performance, many do not. On top of that, LED technology and controls are fundamentally different from those of conventional lighting, which means there’s a significant learning curve for both manufacturers and buyers. And, as with any new technology, there’s a lack of field data. Coupled with a general unfamiliarity with LED products, this add to a profusion of hype and misinformation. are Led rePLaCement LamPS ready? So the big question is, are LED replacement lamps ready to fill in the gap that will be left when incandescent products are phased out? We can get a good idea of what the answer is by looking at data from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lighting Facts® program (www.lightingfacts.com). It is a voluntary program based on the Lighting Facts label, which presents LM-79-verified performance data on LED lighting products in a standardized, easy-to-read way. (LM-79 refers to LM-79 Electrical and Photometric Measurements of Solid-State Lighting Products, which is published by the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America.) Manufacturers pledge to use the Lighting Facts label on their products,

while retailers, distributors, lighting professionals, utilities, and energyefficiency organizations pledge to look for and use products that bear it. To date, more than 1,000 products are registered with Lighting Facts, which makes it the largest database of its kind. What that database shows us is that while current LED omnidirectional replacement lamps meet 2012–2014 efficacy levels required by EISA, most can only match the light output of 40W incandescent lamps. Although LED products that can meet the light output of 60W incandescent lamps are starting to appear, there are still products out there that can’t even meet 40W equivalency. It’s also important to note that for any LED lighting product, light output and efficacy aren’t enough. You still need to consider such factors as color quality, light distribution, and lifetime to ensure that product performance is acceptable to consumers. And right now, the data show that many LED replacement lamps do not meet these other product performance metrics. Despite the fact that LED replacement lamps may not currently be ready to fill all of the gaps left by incandescent lamps, there is still more than a year before the first phase of EISA takes effect, and LED performance continues to rapidly improve, with no sign of slowing down.

NEMA electroindustry • October 2010

NEMA: Electro Industry October 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NEMA: Electro Industry October 2010