The DesignLights Consortium (DLC), Medford, MA, which manages one of the lighting industry’s qualified products lists on which many utilities base their rebate programs, introduced the first draft of the next version of its Solid-State Lighting (SSL) Technical Requirements, version 5.0, back in January. Last month the non-profit group gathered stakeholders in St. Louis for its annual meeting and discussion of the evolution of lighting requirements was front and center.
The draft version 5.0 is more conceptual than technical at this point. It does ratchet up energy-efficiency requirements with efficacy increases of about 10% across the board, with some product categories seeing essentially no required efficacy increase and others a much larger increase. Version 5.0 also looks to factors such as controllability to drive additional efficiency improvements.
Tina Halfpenny, executive director of DLC, said much of the push for better quality lighting is coming from the utilities. “They’re seeing lot of problems, particularly with glare,” Halfpenny said. “They’re seeing a lot products coming in that are on the DLC list, but in order to meet the efficacy requirements they’re doing things like ripping off the lens from the fixture. So there’s been some push-back on the quality of the light as we continue to push on efficacy.”
Separately, DLC last week released the second draft of its Networked Lighting Control System Technical Requirements, v4.0, for public comment.
