The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently published the final draft of its version 2 ENERGY STAR lamp (light bulb) program specification. The agency and industry stakeholders have been working on the new lamp program requirements for the better part of a year (see my earlier Mr. Green blog, "ENERGY STAR's Lamp Program Revision Process Switches On"). As ENERGY STAR program specs go, the lamp program requirements are much more extensive than other product programs, affecting not only energy efficiency, but also quality and reliability performance.
Key changes from the previous draft 3 include:
- Efficacy Supported by stakeholder comments and product data that revealed a CRI1 / efficacy tradeoff, the final draft has separate efficacy requirements based on CRI. There was insufficient test data for decorative lamps to justify the same approach.
Product Scope Changes in this draft now allow for a wider selection of lower cost lamps to become eligible for the ENERGY STAR logo. For omnidirectional lamps, a previously required 25,000 hours minimum lifetime (22.8 years2) has been reduced to 15,000 hours (13.7 years2). Omni-directionality requirements have been modified slightly to allow cost reductions without dramatically impacting performance. While Power Factor (PF) for lamps > 10 W remains at 0.7, the PF for lower power lamps has been reduced to 0.6.
Test Procedures The EPA made adjustments throughout this specification to align with the U.S. Department of Energy’s pending test procedures.
Harmonization with Luminaires Version 2 Specification Color maintenance measurement, start time, run-up time, connected criteria, and test criteria for color tunable products were modified to harmonize with the ENERGY STAR luminaires specification.
| Lamp Type | Minimum Lamp Efficacy Requirements (lumens/watt) | |
| CRI ≥ 90 | CRI < 90 | |
| Omnidirectional | 70 | 80 |
| Directional | 61 | 70 |
| Decorative | 65 | |
Additional stakeholder comments should be submitted to the EPA at lighting@energystar.gov no later than December 18th. The EPA plans for the new spec to become effective on January 2nd, 2017. The final draft can be downloaded here. For additional information related to the new requirements, including presentations and stakeholder comments, visit the Lamps Specification Version 2.0 web page.
1. Color Rendering Index
2. Based on a 3 hour/day usage
