The cage match continues: Energy Star must include lighting lifetime and quality
In the previous post, Bill Watkins of Bridgelux argues against Energy Star confusing its charter as an energy efficiency rating with a responsibility to set de facto lifetime numbers for solid-state lights (SSLs.) I asked Mark McClear, Director, Applications Engineering & New Business Development at LED manufacturer Cree, if he thought Energy Star was muddying the water and adding a burdensome testing window to US lighting manufacturers. He was adamant: Lifetime and reliability standards are necessary to keep out poor quality LED-based lights that will otherwise poison the market for the fledgling SSL industry.
McClear’s point is that that light efficacy is important, yes, but it’s just one dimension of what consumers look for in a light. “If the color of the light is bad, or it flickers, or you can’t dim it or it doesn’t last very long, or during its lifetime the color changes, then it doesn’t matter how much energy it saves because nobody will use it.” McClear says the DOE/Energy Start has walked a balance between efficacy, color and quality because they want to ensure the adoption of the technology and actually realize the energy benefits.
What about relying on a manufacturer’s warranty instead to ensure lighting lifetime? His reply: “What good is a 5 year warranty from a company that’s only been around for a year? Look at the balance sheet of many start-up companies look at the balance sheet of these companies. If they sell a lot of products but don’t have the financial capability to warranty them, the warranty isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”
What about the built in headwind of 9-12 months of passing these tests, compared to companies developing products for non-US markets that don’t require lifetime and quality standards? His reply: “Energy Star is voluntary, it’s not a standard. If you want to comply with it then you do have 9 months. You can always enter the market on a level playing field with foreign competitors, and then 9 months later when you get the documentation, then put the Energy Star label on it.
About Energy Star being voluntary, not required to sell in the US: Watkins points out that it’s a de facto requirement because of the government and utility rebates tied to it. McClear says, “If you walked through [Last month’s lighting show,] Lightfair, 95% of the luminaires you saw were not Energy Star compliant, yet they’re finding buyers in the US without an Energy star label.”
The next post: Is there anything these guys agree on?
Brent - Eutricity commented:
I've been trying to get Energy Star to consider Power Factor, and I've seen very little feedback. Fluorescent ballasts all need 98+% PF, and I heard ES is talking about is 90% for LEDs; but many fixtures we've tested have PF in the 45-65% range. Furthermore, it would be much easier for ES to look at how the LEDs of any fixture are being powered to determine life. It should all be viewed based on the application anyway.
John L commented:
If a warranty is to reflect quality.. then the manufacturer would have to perform all the reliability tests Bill Waktins is resisting.. other wise .. what is the warranty cost based on?
Yep.. it would be based on everything but quality.
If Energy Star is to provide any significant "help" to the consumer..
It needs to include quality metrics.
Other wise... what is it value?
A "Star" to replace Watts per lumen ?
At that point... it is just marketing BS.
FIRE LTD commented:
Every day someone comes into my show room asking to replace all their lights with the "New LED's" and I take them into my lab and show them where the market is. Yes, Cree has done a good job with color, life and ease of install and dimming and we are testing all the new 6 inch , 5 inch and 4 inch recessed LED's and some of them will be giving Cree a run for the money but the cost of goods verses energy saveings is not very good on residential where as we can show the savings on commerical projects and the screw ins are still expensive and not very bright or do not have the color to warrent its use and the cheeper CFL's even though they lack the incandescent color are still real inexpensive. White light is white light to the end user. It becomes all about cost. My company does lot of energy saving walk throughs and we are totally opposed to CFL's as it takes more energy than the lamp used over its life to remove it correctly from the waste stream. The only people that benifit from their use is the power companies and their share holders as the power companies hand out dividends with out spending any more on the grid than they absolutly have to. No wonder their stock is doing so well but we will be paying for the improper disposil of all those CFL's ( just like the batteries we took so long to learn to recycle correctly)for the next few thousand years. Go LED's as I believe it will be the future when we iron out the heat/life/color issue.
dynapb commented:
I would go with the Cree opinion any day over Bridgelux. If they want the EnergyStar rating then design and test for a quality product. With the CFL fiasco you cannot buy a product from even a "quality" company with any assurance that the light will last more than 6 months. I vote for Quality!
Mark commented:
Some of the cheaper LED bulp manufactors just raise the LED current higher than recommended, to gain more lights and lifetime goes down.
jtevanspe commented:
The CFL guys need to add small vent holes near the base of their bulbs for better heat dissipation in ceiling applications.
Until the LED market matures, I plan to replace more more of my conventional ceiling fixtures with 2X 4 ft fluorescent fixtures. The 4 ft fluorescent tubes still have about the best (Lumen*hrs)/($*W) score.
Troy commented:
For something to be truly energy efficient I would like to see the total energy used taken into account. This would include the energy needed to manufacture and also recycle or dispose of it. The consumption during usage over its lifetime is only part of the equation on a global scale. I think we may all be surprised with some of the figures when taking everything into consideration.
Quality Mfg in Taiwan commented:
Mark McClear is so right!
The market deserves good lighting and if a voluntary energy star qualification doesn't help to provide it, what else would? Of course subsidies need to tie to quality.
Ben commented:
Todd is an idiot
P.E. commented:
Look on eBay and you can find really cheap lights with no warranty or product information (i.e. 2 Watts, $2.29, "50,000+ hours") up to CREE 5 Watt for $58.00. I find it hard to interpret the claims, and I'm an engineer. What is the public to do?
Dale commented:
The life of a CFL is application dependent. For bulbs used for a few hours each day, a vertical table lamp application is OK, but use in a ceiling (base up) application will have a much shorter life due to heat on the base. Energy-Star ratings perhaps don't reflect this.
Loring commented:
I agree with Kevin - who can keep up withthe warranty requirements for a $10 bulb? Got dozens of bulbs all looking alike, which ones go with what receipt, purchase date, how much time and trouble are you going to take to pursue it?
But I do know that the CFLs I put in are a bitch - they don't last anywhere near the 8x claims and the colors are weird and they don't start up fast. Some quality/reliability standards might help LEDs because I'm bummed out on CFLs.
John commented:
Everybody's right. Bottom liine is for a product to be successful it needs to be reliable. I work in the semicondcutor industry and it takes 6 months to verify reliability after the bugs are worked out of a new product, and that hasn't hurt innovation. That is why there is pre-production and qualified product.In reallity what is needed is a second stamp of approval by an independent lab to determine reliability. I find it interesting that Mr. McClear is fine with reliability standards as Cree has a reputation for being the best quality in the LED market
Todd commented:
Mr Watkins point was that Energy Star is about efficiency, not reliability. If they put too much balony in their spec , and make it too costly to comply, companies will way the benefit vs cost and bow out, killing Energy Star's usefullness. Reliability comes in with the Good Housekeeping seal of approval, consumer reports, and the other agency who's name escapes my 50year old brain. This is (another) power grab by the Dept of Obama to regulate everything while pretending to keep Gov't out of our lives!
Ken commented:
I absolutely agree with Kevin comment above. My experiance with CFL has been very poor, to the point that I am unlikely to buy any more. If LED / SSL end up having the same issues getting to an afordable point, then they also will fail in the market and we will all lose the energy savings they could have brought!
qksand commented:
I am a consumer and I look for Energy Star rating. I certainly want to see a lifetime/reliability standard on products that I buy.
Kevin commented:
Warrantys are completely worthless on any product costing less than $100. Who keeps receipts or packaging materials for a $10 item? How would you know what the warranty is or prove when you bought it? For $10 is it worth boxing up a bulb and driving it to the post office and paying the postage to send it in? Of course not. On any item like this I would be surprised if more than a couple of percent of the actual failures that occur within the warranty period are actually claimed.
I want a REAL indication of the lifetime of the bulb before I buy it. I am fed up with CFLs that claim longer life than incandescents and then fall misserably short of their claims. There needs to be some type of a standard out there that is enforced for labeling of lifetimes, otherwise, nobody will believe the claims on the labels.
