EPA Created a Unified Energy Star Qualified Light Fixture List

A new Energy Star Qualified Light Fixture list combines luminaires qualified to the Residential Light Fixtures specification, the SSL luminaires specification, and the Luminaires V1.1 specification. Recognizing that evolving changes in Energy Star guidelines for LED-based solid-state-lighting (SSL) products have in the short term created confusion, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has created a unified Energy Star Qualified Light Fixture list that it plans to update twice monthly. The list will consolidate listings of products qualified to the older Residential Light Fixtures (RLF) V4.2 and SSL Luminaires V1.3 specifications with products qualified to the new Luminaires V1.1 specification. The consolidated Energy Star Qualified Light Fixture list is available in a Microsoft Excel file. Users can sort the list by light-source technology, color temperature, efficacy and other characteristics. The list is also available in PDF form and both versions can be downloaded at the EPA Light Fixtures website. The EPA plans to update the new list through April 1, 2012. After that date, all manufacturers will have to have products qualified to the Luminaires V1.1 specification. Qualification activity to the older specifications ceased in mid-September. As we reported earlier this year, the EPA finalized the Luminaires V1.0 specification back in February after circulating the specification in draft form in 2010. The new specification splits luminaires into directional and non-directional classifications and adds new methods of qualifying each. The effective date was originally to have been October 1, 2011. Subsequently, the EPA announced in May that the effective date of the new specification would be delayed to April 2012. The agency noted that the delay acknowledged that the testing process can take as much as nine months and that luminaire makers would need the extra time to qualify products to the new specification. In July, the EPA released the Luminaires V1.1 specification with some changes intended to simplify the qualification process. The EPA summarized the Luminaire V1.1 changes in a letter to Energy Star Lighting Partners and other interested parties. The EPA also used the announcement of the new list as another opportunity to remind luminaire makers that they need to qualify products to the Luminaires V1.1 specification before next April to retain Energy Star status. Source: LEDs Magazine