Lighting Facts is brought to you by Solid-State Lighting Quality Advocates, a program of the U.S. Department of Energy designed to help assure that LED products you find on the market meet your expectations. These products include LED products for everyday lighting purposes. They do not include indicator applications such as flashlights, nightlights and holiday lighting.
As a testament to quality, participating manufacturers voluntarily pledge to report accurate and consistent product performance results. Those results appear on the Light Facts label, which those manufacturers must include on product packaging or in product literature. Retailers and other industry buyers can then make informed purchasing decisions for their lighting inventory.
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Isn’t this the sort of thing ENERGY STAR® usually covers? |
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As a matter of fact, DOE launched an ENERGY STAR program for LED lighting in 2008. While the Lighting Facts label and ENERGY STAR both make energy efficient purchasing decisions easier and more transparent, the programs operate in different ways:
- ENERGY STAR was designed with consumers in mind. It sets a minimum performance level for qualifying products to help you choose the most efficient products. The ENERGY STAR label can only be applied to a limited group of qualifying LED lighting products for general illumination.
- The Lighting Facts label is an industry tool to help retailers and other buyers choose wisely. It provides essential information to evaluate product performance against manufacturer claims. Armed with this information, retailers and other industry stakeholders can keep poor performing products from ever reaching their shelves. The Lighting Facts label can be applied to any LED product for general illumination.
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What’s on the Lighting Facts label? |
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The Lighting Facts label allows retailers and utilities to compare products against manufacturer claims and against similar products. The label provides a quick summary of product performance in five areas:
- Lumens measure light output. The higher the number, the more light is emitted.
- Lumens per watt (lm/W) measures efficiency. The higher the number, the more efficient the product.
- Watts measure the energy required to light the product. The lower the wattage, the less energy is used.
- Correlated Color Temperature (CCT) measures light color. “Cool” colors have higher Kelvin temperatures (3600–5500 K); “warm” colors have lower color temperatures (2700–3000 K). Cool white light is usually better for visual tasks. Warm white light is usually better for living spaces because it casts a warmer light on skin and clothing. Color temperatures of 2700 to 3600 K are recommended for most general indoor and task lighting.
- Color Rendering Index (CRI) measures the effect of the lamp's light spectrum on the color appearance of objects. The higher the number, the truer the appearance of the light on objects. Incandescent lighting is 100 on the CRI.
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| Q: |
Why was the Lighting Facts label developed for LED lighting? |
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The rapid growth of LEDs has resulted in an increasing number of new products on the market, from desk lamps to outdoor lighting. While many of these products showcase the energy-savings potential and performance attributes of LED lighting, quite a few under-performing products are also appearing in the market. Since bad news travels fast, such products could discourage consumers from accepting this new technology. This is exactly what occurred in the early days of compact fluorescent lighting (CFL), which slowed the market acceptance of these products. DOE developed the Lighting Facts label to avoid this problem for solid-state lighting. |
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Does the Lighting Facts label assure a high-performance product? |
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No. The label is an industry tool to help retailers and other buyers evaluate product performance against manufacturer claims. |
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Will I see the label on lighting products? |
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You may see the label on product packaging, but in many cases it will appear on promotional literature that your retailer, utility or lighting designer would use to select the products they sell and promote. For this reason, you may not be able to use it to comparison shop. |
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So how can I be sure the LED products I buy are the best available? |
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Visit our partners page and make a note of which manufacturers have committed to providing the Lighting Facts label, and which retailers and utilities in your area select LED products based on the label. Shop for your LED lighting products accordingly. And of course, choose ENERGY STAR products whenever available. |
DISCLAIMER: The Department of Energy does not approve or endorse the products or services offered by any company that participates in the SSL Quality Advocates program. As such, any company that participates in the SSL Quality Advocates program may not claim or imply that DOE approves or endorses anything other than its commitment to energy efficiency.