LEDs have brought about a revolution for electric lighting: efficiency improvements in the past decade have been more significant than those in the entirety of the preceding 120 years. Yet with lighting still accounting for nearly 5% of global CO2 emissions, there is much more work to be done.
In line with this, two new lighting regulations which aim to continue the work of improving energy efficiency in the market and cut carbon emissions came into force on the 1st of September 2021 in the EU, with one combined regulation for the UK implemented on 1st October 2021.
These are new European Commission regulations which were ratified and published in December 2019. Since the UK has left the European Union, it decided to replicate the technical requirements and combine them into one UK regulation known as a Statutory instrument. In practical terms, this means the new lighting regulations will apply to EU member states and the UK in a near identical fashion – only specific regulatory markings are likely to vary, for example CE/UKCA and EU/GB flags on point of sale energy labels.
Under the current Brexit trade agreement, Northern Ireland remains part of the single European market and is subject to the EU version of these regulations.
What are the new lighting regulations called?
What is the Energy Labelling Regulation about?
How have energy labels changed?
Previous EU energy label
New EU energy labels
New UK energy labels
Previously, the label had a rainbow colour scale going from Green to Red and lettering scale from A++ to E.
The revised scale is still green to red in colour, but has a lettering scale from A to G with more efficiency needed to achieve these levels. As such, many products that were rated A++ will now be rated C or D.
New energy efficiency requirements
It’s worth bearing in mind that products that have a lower rating on their new label have not become less efficient – they are consuming the same amount of power as they always have. A clear example of this is the Integral LED High Performance+ panel which has an industry leading efficiency of 175lm/w, but is still only classified C on the new scale.
What do each part of the energy label means ？
Consumers are now presented with more information on each energy label, which may take some getting used to, but overall these changes should help them in making fair comparisons between products.
EPREL: What lighting businesses need to know
Products on the market with incomplete EPREL registrations will be deemed non-compliant by market surveillance.
