The companion blog to the books Designing With Light and Fundamentals of Energy Efficient Lighting and Controls
We’re now up to 14 states and Canada that have enacted one or more restrictions or bans on mercury containing lamps. Some of the bans are already active, while others go into effect as early as January 1, 2025. LEDVANCE is maintaining a list on their website along with other helpful resources.
Last week California joined Vermont and the European Union in enacting a ban on fluorescent lamps. The California ban covers:
The ban isn’t complete because there are some specialty fluorescents that are not included, such as those used for copiers and scanners, disinfection, sunlamps for tanning, and specialized lamps for medical purposes. However, it does apply to:
Over the next few years hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of fixtures will need to be replaced or, if possible, converted with LED retrofit lamps. From the perspective of efficiency and quality of light replacement is certainly preferred, but it won’t be cheap. It’s not clear if California or utilities will offer any sort of financing to make the change.
You can download the law here.
Nearly all lamps found in residential and commercial spaces are included in the ban, which goes into effect in September. It seems that stage and studio lamps are exempt for now.
Source: Halogen lightbulb sales to be banned in UK under climate change plans – BBC News
On April 21, 2021, DOE issued a preliminary determination that Standard 90.1-2019 will achieve greater energy efficiency in buildings subject to the code. DOE estimates national savings in commercial buildings of approximately:
If the DOE makes a final affirmative determination, and it likely will, states will have two years to certify that they have reviewed the provisions of their commercial building code regarding energy efficiency, and, as necessary, updated their codes to meet or exceed the updated edition of Standard 90.1.
Since 1992, 42 U.S.C. 6833 has required the DOE to evaluate new versions of ASHRAE 90.1 or its successor to determine if adopting the new version as a nationwide minimum standard would improve energy efficiency in commercial buildings. If it does, “each State shall, not later than 2 years after the date of the publication of such determination, certify that it has reviewed and updated the provisions of its commercial building code regarding energy efficiency in accordance with the revised standard for which such determination was made. Such certification shall include a demonstration that the provisions of such State’s commercial building code regarding energy efficiency meet or exceed such revised standard.”
Yesterday an addendum to ANSI/ASHRAE/ICC/USGBC/IES Standard 189.1-2017 Standard for the Design of High-Performance Green Buildings was published. The addendum makes changes to Section 8.3.5, which covers lighting. One of the biggest changes is to add TM-30 color rendition criteria to the section on Indoor Lighting Quality. Here’s the relevant text:
8.3.5.3 Color Rendition. At least 95% of lighting power of nominally white lighting within each enclosed space shall be provided by luminaires that meet the following criteria at full light output in accordance with IES-TM-30, Annex E, P2 and F3:
1. Rf of at least 85
2. Rf,h1 of at least 85
3. Rg of at least 92
4. Rcs,h1 of at least -7% but no greater than +19%Nominally white lighting is lighting that has chromaticity within the basic or extended nominal color correlated temperature (CCT) specifications of ANSI C78.377.
Where a lighting system is capable of changing its spectrum, it shall be capable of meeting the color rendition requirements within each nominal CCT of 2700 K, 3500 K, 4000 K, and 5000 K, as defined in ANSI C78.377, that the system is capable of delivering.
I hope that this is going to put more pressure on manufacturers to improve the color rendering of their luminaires as measured by TM-30, not CRI, and to provide TM-30 information on their cut sheets. If not, they’ll risk not being considered on projects that have TM-30 requirements.
In 2007 Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) with the goal of increasing energy efficiency across the economy. Part of EISA has affected the lighting industry in the form of mandated efficacy of light sources. The initial efficacy rules targeted A-Lamps (standard household light bulbs) and set the efficacy level above that of incandescent but below that of halogen lamps. The result was a slow shift to the more energy efficient technology. Over the years the energy efficiency requirements have been expanded to more lamp shapes, always in keeping with technological ability so that we never faced a lamp shortage or loss of a lamp shape. Today, more than 50% of lamps sold are LED that exceed even the most stringent requirements.
On September 4th the administration announced that it was going to cancel a new set of requirements that would have taken effect in January 2020 that would have applied to products such as decorative medium base lamps and MR type lamps. In my opinion, this is another example of the administration cutting off its nose to spite its face. As with the threat to “investigate” automakers who agree with the State of California’s proposed energy efficiency requirements, this effort to undo energy efficiency despite the monumental consensus that we need to reign in our energy consumption isn’t going to go have any effect. No lamp manufacturer is going to reopen or build new factories to make incandescent lamps when it’s obvious that A) the next administration is going to reinstate the efficacy requirements B) the public has embraced the energy savings of LED lamps, and C) the companies know that it would be bad for their image to turn their backs on mitigating climate change.
Source: White House to Relax Energy Efficiency Rules for Light Bulbs – The New York Times
Imagine, not more energy conservation codes!
Source: Nuclear fusion on brink of being realised, say MIT scientists | Environment | The Guardian
San Francisco has this week passed landmark legislation requiring all new buildings under 10 storeys in height to be fitted with rooftop solar panels.
The city’s San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed the new rule on Tuesday, making the metropolis the largest in the US to mandate solar installations on new properties
Source: San Francisco adopts law requiring solar panels on all new buildings
On December 2nd the U.S. Department of Energy indued a final determination concerning energy conservation standards for high intensity discharge lamps. You can download a PDF of the document from the DOE’s web site.
ASHRAE has released a series of changes to Standard 90.1 in preparation for the 2016 update. Among those changes is the further tightening of LPDs (click here) in all space and building types. In my opinion, these changes should be rejected by the lighting community.
Rather than provide tight, but reasonable, limitations on the power consumption of lighting systems, the LPDs proposed in the revision of Table 9.5.1 are so low that they clearly favor LED technology almost to the exclusion of all others. They also strongly imply that energy efficiency is the most important criteria of a lighting system, regardless of the application. Neither of these positions is appropriate for this document or the organizations that develop and maintain it.
The proposed LPDs are nearly impossible to meet by lighting designers who wish to exercise their best judgement, or meet client requirements, by selecting project appropriate sources of light other than LED. In some cases this imposes an avoidable financial burden on the owner. For example, LED luminaires with a combination of high output and smooth dimming to zero (such as those required for theatres, cinemas, houses of worship, etc.) are substantially more expensive than halogen alternatives, and may require more expensive control systems as well. Clients requiring excellent color rendering (such as high end retail, art schools, museums, and health care facilities) are also compelled to purchase premium priced LED fixtures.
The only way that these low LPDs (and the even lower LPDs we assume will be proposed in the future) make sense is if they are paired with hours of usage to arrive at a time weighted limitations. Even then, the LPDs should be high enough to permit designers and owners a choice in the technology that they use for a given application. The proposed LPDs come very close to eliminating that choice.
I’m not saying that all buildings should be illuminated with incandescent light, or that LPDs should be abolished. I am saying, however, that the ever tightening of LPDs cannot go on forever, and that we have reached a tipping point where these limitations are having unjustifiable impacts on designs and budgets. In my opinion, LPDs should not be further reduced for the foreseeable future.