 |
| LED Street Lights on Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, California |
DesignLights ConsortiumTM (DLC) recently announced new Qualified Product List (QPL) application process. Starting on July 5th, 2012, all products except refrigerator lighting products need to be listed with LED Lighting Facts® Program first in order to be listed on DLC QPL. DLC claimed this change can provide another tool for utility programs to evaluate products, expose products to LED Lighting Facts® partners outside of DLC, and in my opinion the most important thing is D&R International, a consultant firm handles both programs, can reduce LM-79 review process redundancy which should expedite DLC QPL application process.
With more and more certification programs, quality assurance programs, and rebates programs in US, the cost for manufacturers to get their products to be listed with above programs have been increased dramatically for past four years. These programs not only increase the cost of products but also the amount of time to design the products and introduce new products. Since LEDs have become more and more efficient every year, LED luminaire manufacturers may upgrade the LEDs and the design of the fixture every year which will lead another round of process for certification and rebate.
5-year warranty is pretty common in outdoor lighting industry but due to the expected life of LED is more than 50,000 hrs, more and more RFPs request five- to fifteen-year warranty of luminaires which lead to another cost increase of the products. Does this make sense when technology evolves every year? Do you still want to use iPad if Apple introduces iPad 10 with state of the art technology?
The intention of these programs is to kick out the bad rats of this market but these programs may also hamper the adoption of LED technology and prevent small lighting companies to grow. Instead of relying on these general “guarding dog” programs to make buying decision, perhaps the better way to evaluate LED outdoor lighting is run few testing sites for a certain period time in order to evaluate and confirm the performance of luminaires. Seeing is believing. Until we all do our homework, embracing LED Lighting technology with reasonable price may not be far away.
