During the past 15 years, the Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Department of Energy has enacted increasingly stringent product energy regulations taking on lighting’s most venerable workhorses—incandescent lamps, high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps and ballasts, and fluorescent lamps and ballasts. In short, the least-efficient and lowest-cost options are steadily being removed from the market in favor of more-efficient options that reduce consumer energy costs.
Typically, regulations create an energy-performance standard for a defined lighting category and require covered products to satisfy the standard or cease being manufactured and imported. Building owners and managers may continue to use what they have on hand, and distributors may be able to sell their inventories until those are exhausted. The industry typically has three years from the regulation’s date of issuance to prepare.
Energy regulations improve baseline efficiency in a category, reducing operating costs, while typically increasing average initial cost. Practitioners should advise their customers about new regulations and the benefits of a lighting upgrade while checking with manufacturers to confirm availability of compliant alternatives. Owners often face a choice of replacing non-compliant components individually as part of maintenance or all together as a retrofit. A retrofit is often desirable to ensure consistent lighting quality; make optimal replacement decisions; address other issues, such as lighting quality; gain economies of volume purchasing and applicable rebates; and avoid mismatched components that can cause poor performance.
This article provides a brief tour of the regulatory environment in the lighting industry, focusing on fluorescent and HID product regulations and how they are impacting availability in the nonresidential market.
Fluorescent Lamps and Ballasts
Federal regulations eliminated a majority of magnetic fluorescent lamp ballasts from the market between 2005-10. Specifically, this included magnetic ballasts designed to operate 4- and 8-foot F40T12, F34T12, F96T12, F96T12/ES, F96T12HO and F96T12HO/ES lamps.
Subsequent regulations expanded and strengthened the energy standards (based on a new metric) while adding a required ballast power factor of 0.90+ for nonresidential use. The rules, which took effect Nov. 14, 2014, cover seven classes of T12, T8 and T5 fluorescent lamp ballasts but primarily impact availability of T12 ballasts.
Many T12 electronic ballasts complied with the rules while some were discontinued and others reengineered. Notably, T12 magnetic outdoor sign ballasts are largely being discontinued; T12 electronic ballasts provide an alternative.
The following are exempted:
- Dimming ballasts that dim to 50 percent or lower output.
- T8 magnetic ballasts labeled and marketed only for use in electromagnetic interference-sensitive applications (and sold in packages of 10 or fewer units).
- Programmed-start ballasts for 4-foot medium bi-pin lamps that deliver less than 140 mA to each lamp (0.71 ballast factor).
On the lamp side, regulations taking effect in July 2012 eliminated a majority of 4-foot linear and 2-foot U-shaped T12 lamps and many 8-foot T12 and T12HO lamps. Low-color-rendering (70-79 CRI) T8 lamps also failed to comply but several lamp manufacturers gained a temporary exemption for their specific products, which expired July 2014.
In January 2015, DOE issued new energy standards that will take effect January 2018. These rules will specifically impact 4-foot linear T8, 2-foot U-shaped (U-bend) T8 and 4-foot linear T5 and T5HO lamps. A significant number of 4-foot linear and 2-foot U-bend T8 lamps do not comply—largely full-wattage (32W) lamps. Alternatives include reduced-wattage (28W) lamps. Extended-life lamps are expected to survive but may be limited to wattages lower than 32W unless manufacturers reengineer them. To save energy, owners should switch to a reduced-wattage T8 lamp or operate a full-wattage T8 lamp on a dimming control. A full range of 8-foot lamps, 4-foot T5/T5HO lamps and exempted specialty lamps are expected to continue to be available.
Exemptions include:
- Lamps designed to promote plant growth.
- Lamps designed specifically for cold-temperature applications.
- Colored lamps.
- Impact-resistant lamps.
- Reflectorized or aperture lamps.
- Lamps designed for reprographic applications.
- UV lamps.
- Lamps with a CRI of 87 or higher.