DOE policy expected to remove general service lamp exemptions (UPDATED)

The US Department of Energy (DOE) lamps policy is back in the headlines as President Biden’s administration has released “a pre-publication version of a proposed rule that would greatly advance the energy efficiency of the nation’s light bulbs,” as reported by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental activist organization, in a blog post today by energy-efficiency advocate Joe Vukovich.

LEDs Magazine has covered multiple swings of the US lamps policy pendulum in recent years. In early 2019, we reported that the DOE planned to alter the definition of “general service lamps” at the urging of some solid-state lighting (SSL) manufacturers with interests backed by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA). This change under the DOE, during the Trump administration, was intended to roll back efficacy requirements that would have required a conversion of more lamp types — including reflector, decorative, and specialty lamps — to LED sources in 2020.

Later in the fall of 2019, it was announced that DOE policy influencing the conversion of the common A-lamp (pear-shaped lamp) form factor to LEDs would remain, but reflector lamps, candelabra- and globe-shaped lamps would not be categorized as general service lamps — thereby excluding them from the more stringent efficiency guidelines (and thus allowing less-efficient incumbent sources to remain in play). In turn, multiple environmental coalitions brought suits against the DOE, challenging the decision to forego enforcing the more stringent energy-efficiency policy for specialty replacement lamps.

As 2020 came into focus, the state of California earned an environmental win by enforcing the proposed 45-lm/W efficacy minimum for all lamp types, while the NRDC initiated a second suit against the DOE in a push to re-establish the proposed A-lamp efficacy standards. Much as we anticipated, by summer of 2021, the change in administration essentially reversed the GSL efficacy policy.

Today, Vukovich wrote that a newly proposed DOE rule “will require all so-called ‘general service lamps’ or GSLs — think general, everyday light bulbs — to meet an efficiency threshold of 45 lumens per watt (LPW),” following a rule proposed in November that would remove exemptions from the GSL definition “and [enlarge] the scope of coverage of the standard.”

He cited analysis from the Appliance Standards Awareness project in observing that “Swift implementation of these rules is projected to result in $20 billion in cumulative utility bill savings for consumers and 50 million metric tons of avoided carbon emissions by 2030.”

You can read the full blog on the NRDC website, and view a copy of the proposed action from the DOE as a PDF from the agency’s website.

CARRIE MEADOWS is associate editor of LEDs Magazine, with 20 years’ experience in business-to-business publishing across technology markets including solid-state technology manufacturing, fiberoptic communications, machine vision, lasers and photonics, and LEDs and lighting.

*Updated Dec. 8, 2021 9:58 AM for correction of Natural Resources Defense Council name. LEDs Magazine regrets the error.

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