Codes + Standards

The dirtiest little secret in LED lighting is that luminaire lifetime values are nearly meaningless for the vast majority of luminaire manufacturers. Why is this? Two reasons: First, all manufacturers typically report TM-21 LED chip projected lumen maintenance values as the luminaire lifetime. This does not include the driver nor other components. Drivers have historically [...]

The International Commission on Illumination (CIE) issued a Position Statement on Color Quality Metrics, its second edition, recommending the improvement of color rendering metrics for white light sources. The statement highlights the development of the CIE General Color Fidelity Index (Rf) in 2017 as a solution to technical issues with the older CIE General Color [...]

  BS 8887-221:2024 is a new British Standard that provides guidelines for the remanufacturing of luminaires. It is part of the MADE (Manufacture, Assembly, Disassembly, and End-of-life processing) suite of documents and addresses the growing need for sustainable practices in the British lighting industry. It could provide a glimpse at how North American remanufacturing could [...]

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and 15 state attorneys general have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) over new energy efficiency standards for certain single-family homes and multifamily housing programs. The lawsuit, filed on January 2, 2025, in the [...]

ANSI recently published ANSI C78.377-2024: Electric Lamps – Specifications for the Chromaticity of Solid-State Lighting (SSL) Products. It covers the range of chromaticities recommended for general solid-state lighting (SSL) products so that the white light chromaticities of the products can be communicated to both commercial and residential consumers. The color appearance of SSL sources is [...]

  The DesignLights Consortium (DLC) has released their Draft 1 Horticultural Technical Requirements V4.0. The draft proposes three updates:  Efficacy increase: Hort V4.0 proposes to increase the efficacy threshold to 2.5 μmol × J-1, which is an 8.7% increase over the Hort V3.0 threshold. This will set the DLC efficacy threshold for LED-based horticultural lighting at more [...]

  Here is a quick review of five CIE publications released in 2024: CIE 253:2024 Overview of Methods for Evaluating Colour Rendition of White-Light Sources beyond Colour Fidelity Technical Report CIE 253:2024 includes an overview of seven methods to characterize specific colour rendition characteristics of white-light sources beyond colour fidelity. Methods to characterize colour fidelity are described [...]

UL 153, the Standard for Portable Electric Luminaires, has undergone several revisions in its thirteenth edition, dated April 3, 2024. The key changes include: Power supply clarification for USB/POE connections: Updated sections 8.2, 8.2.1, and 199.1 to clarify power supply requirements for portable luminaires using USB or Power over Ethernet (POE) connections. Convenience receptacle requirements: [...]

  NEMA has introduced two new standards. One aimed at evaluating Build American Buy America (BABA) compliance, and the other to define how electric vehicles transfer power back to the grid through EV chargers. These standards impact the lighting and EV charger industries by addressing supply chain evaluation, and electric vehicle supply equipment. Make it [...]