faces of the future - Illuminating Engineering Society

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RETROFIT CASE STUDY #416
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will potentially make a significant
impact on the industry when it’s
published, is IES TM-21. Intended
for use with LM-80 test data, it is
expected to specify a method for
estimating future lumen depreciation
of LED packages and modules,
which can then be used in determining
the expected useful life of an
LED product. This potential useful
life of an LED package or module is
only one aspect of total LED luminaire
reliability—but it is a key one,
and an especially tricky one as well.
Color is an important issue for
solid-state lighting, and in the
September issue of LD+A, I wrote
about the Color Quality Scale, a
new metric developed by NIST to
convey the color quality of lighting
products more accurately than the
widely used Color Rendering Index.
In April of this year, NEMA published
SSL-3, a standard that will
have an impact on LED color quality.
Entitled “High-Power White LED
Binning for General Illumination,”
it provides a way for chip manufacturers
to bin their chips based
on color, which will translate into
more consistent color quality of
LED lighting products.
A couple of white papers that were
published by NEMA a while back may
also eventually result in standards,
because the subjects they cover are
very much on people’s minds. LSD-
44 “Solid-State Lighting—The Need
for a New Generation of Sockets
and Interconnects,” and LSD-45
“Recommendations for Solid-State
Lighting Sub-Assembly Interfaces
for Luminaires,” both deal with the
key issue of replaceability. That is,
they deal with the importance of creating
a standard format for replacing
individual LED arrays within a
luminaire, which would go a long
way toward making them modular,
thereby creating a great deal more
flexibility for manufacturers and
specifiers, alike.
These are some of the key solidstate
lighting standards that are in
the works, but it’s by no means
an exhaustive list. Developing SSL
standards is an ongoing process,
because the technology is still evolving.
Although it’s unglamorous
work, the payoff is big: less guesswork
about products, in terms of
their performance and characteristics.
And that, in turn, will raise the
confidence level when specifying
those products.
James Brodrick is the
lighting program manager
for the U.S. Department
of Energy, Building Technologies
Program. The Department’s national
strategy to guide high-efficiency,
high-performance solid-state lighting
products from laboratory to market
draws on key partnerships with the
lighting industry, research community,
standards organizations, energy-efficiency
programs, utilities and
many other voices for efficiency.
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