The U.S. Department of Energy's CALiPER program has released a Snapshot Report on LED A lamps, which utilizes the LED Lighting Facts program's extensive product database to help industry stakeholders understand the current state and trajectory of the market for that class of products.
Among the key findings: The mean efficacy of all A lamps listed by LED Lighting Facts has steadily increased, and is now at 69 lm/W. 95 percent of those lamps meet the current ENERGY STAR efficacy criterion, and nearly 90 percent meet the ENERGY STAR criterion set to take effect in September 2014. While the overall numbers for efficacy are favorable, there still wide variation for individual products; e.g., those with lumen output equivalent to a 60W incandescent lamp range from less than 60 lm/W to nearly 90 lm/W. Several LED A lamps are now available with lumen output equivalent to traditional 75W and 100W incandescent A lamps. Approximately 91 percent of currently listed LED A lamps have a color rendering index (CRI) in the 80s, and most of those products have a nominal correlated color temperature (CCT) of either 2700 K or 3000 K. It remains to be determined if this performance level will be acceptable to consumers, or if there will be significant demand for higher-CRI products.
