Soraa Urge EPA To Address Light Quality In New Specifications

May 28th, 2013 by Joshua S Hill

The world leader in LED lamps built from pure gallium nitride substrates (GaN on GaN), Soraa has urged the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ENERGY STAR program to specifically address light quality and colour rendering in its upcoming new lamp specification.

Soraa aren’t the first to jump on the bandwagon supporting higher colour rendering, with many individuals and industry groups backing the move, including California Lighting Technology Center; Professors Shuji Nakamura and Steven DenBaars; the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD); Northeast Utilities Companies (NSTAR); and lighting designer Chip Israel; who all filed formal comments on EPA’s Draft 3 product specification for LED lamps.

“Poor light quality ruined many consumers’ confidence in compact fluorescents,” said Mike Krames, CTO of Soraa. “The ENERGY STAR qualification must be associated with LED lamps that provide a better quality of light; otherwise, the program will start to lack credibility with end-users and the low adoption rate history of CFLs will be repeated by LED lamps.”

The reality of the situation is that while CFLs may be highly efficient, the light they emitted was not up to spec, with many customers regretting the decision to swap: often, comfort will outweigh any efficiencies and cost-savings, as was the case with light bulbs.

Soraa hope to avoid such a situation reoccurring by addressing the lack of a second high colour rendering index (CRI) tier, asking the EPA to make light quality and colour rendering minimum requirements higher than they currently stand. Bulb manufacturers will engineer their products to perform close to the lower boundaries of whatever specifications the EPA set, as they did with CFLs, and therefore raising the bar will create energy efficient technology that consumers will be happy with. Soraa fear that if the EPA does not address this issue then adoption of efficient lighting technology will stall, similar to what has been observed to date with CFLs.

Light output vs. color rendering index (CRI) for both PAR Lamps (left) and CFL (right) from the ENERGY STAR® Qualified Lighting Product List (QLPL), compared to conventional light sources which consumers have become accustomed to over many decades (red ovals). The current standards drive the industry to predominantly produce modest color quality lamps, which do not address the color quality barrier to adoption.

“To persuade consumers to purchase LEDs instead of incandescent lamps, LED lamps must be seen as high-quality products worth the initial higher price differential. Therefore, LED lamps must closely replicate the color rendering of the incandescent and halogen lamps that they replace,” said Ravi Parikh, Energy Services Specialist at Burlington Electric in Vermont. “The SORAA VIVID is such a product, providing superior color quality while improving energy efficiency. As a utility, we are always willing to consider higher incentives for projects utilizing lamps such as SORAA’s. We want to ensure customer satisfaction by reduced energy bills and maintained—if not, improved—quality of light. There is no need to sacrifice quality for efficiency. It is critical we understand the value in both.”

According to Soraa;

To provide a more balanced portfolio of ENERGY STAR lamp products on the market and mitigate color quality as a barrier to wider adoption of energy efficient lighting products, Soraa proposed to the EPA a second high CRI tier with differential efficacy requirements taking into account the inherent lumen per watt trade-off as a function of CRI for phosphor converted white LEDs. Soraa proposed to keep the existing minimum efficacy requirements, but raise the color quality to a minimum CRI 90.

The adoption of such a proposal will likely increase the overall energy savings through an increase in adoption of higher light quality lamps, as well as a greater level of efficiency in bulbs with a medium-level light quality.

Those of us who pay attention to these issues are already aware of what light bulb will be most efficient in our house and choose accordingly, but for the average consumer all that matters is that the light in their house is what they’re used to and comfortable with. For a long time CFL bulbs did not meet these requirements, and therefore adoption has been slower than would be preferably. Acting now in LED infancy will help to grow its adoption in years to come.

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Tags: bulbs, CFL, colour rending index, CRI, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, lamps, LED, light bulbs, Soraa

About the Author

Joshua S Hill I'm a Christian, a nerd, a geek, and I believe that we're pretty quickly directing planet-Earth into hell in a handbasket! I also write for Fantasy Book Review (.co.uk), and can be found writing articles for a variety of other sites. Check me out at about.me for more.

Otis11

I really hope this passes. A CRI of 90 should be the minimum. While the average person can’t tell the difference above CRI of 80, that leaves half the population (myself included) that can. At a CRI of 90 the percent that can distinguish diminishes rapidly.

(Plus, then it may not be so hard to find a bulb with CRI of 95 if everything else is already at 90)
James Wimberley

In spite of the self-interested source, this initiative is right on the money. What humans like for night-time illumination is firelight – about 1500k , not artificial sunlight at 5000k. Tungsten bulbs were near-perfect for this, even though they were short-lived energy guzzlers. Most CFLs are far too (subjectively) cold, i.e. hot in wavelength.
- Bob_Wallace
  
  I suspect that had tungsten bulbs burned at 5.000k and LEDs were producing 1,500k people would be bitching about LEDs looking like fire rather than artificial sunlight.
  
  Many people just don’t like change.
  
  Many other people just look for things to bitch about….
  - Eka
    
    Bob, James is right. ( Though I think tungsten is about 2800K )
    
    Having just spent $11K on LED lighting for one of my businesses I can say that colour temperature and CRI matter a lot. I am happier with my high end units which have CRI of 90 than the brand I’d never heard of. I am now wondering what to do with them. It’s not like they going to burn out anytime soon!
    I sent back the first leds I was supplied which at 4000K made my stock look unappealing and installed 3000K which lifts reds and yellows.
    For lighting your home avoid light at 5000K unless you really dig that 60’s T8 flouro whiteness to go with the Laminex.
    - Bob_Wallace
      
      So you think you prefer 2,800k because of some genetic memory of living in a cave lit by fire?
      
      And not because of the quality of light from the incandescents you lived with since birth….
  - James Wimberley
    
    Humanoids had fire well before there were modern humans (ca, 300,000 years), long enough for the preference to be hard-wired. Aesthetics matter.
    - Bob_Wallace
      
      Why wouldn’t we be hard-wired to prefer the color temperature of moonlight? We evolved in moonlight, not firelight.
      
      I find this genetic argument highly suspect.