Ecodesign latest - New draft released
- Details
The full texts are available to read via the links below.
From an entertainment lighting perspective, this version is almost entirely unchanged from the draft published in July. There is a minor addition of a new exemption for some specialist fluorescent lamps used in the film industry. And the exemptions established in the July draft, which cover many areas of entertainment lighting, remain in place.
However, this draft does not address any of the issues that the entertainment lighting industry’s Ecodesign Task Group have been trying to raise with the EU since the publication of the July draft.
This means that some key issues remain:
- requirement for lighting fixtures to use less than 0.5W of power in standby mode (when not emitting light), which is not achievable for DMX-controlled lighting fixtures that have to respond immediately to cues.
- inability of high-powered white LED sources to meet the efficiency requirements because of the combined impacts of the Auger effect, thermal effects and in-built optics. Many such sources are far from achieving the regulation limits.
- the definition of green used in colour-tuneable (additive colour mixing) fixtures, which is not set at the right point for the most efficient design of colour mixing systems.
- a number of specific lamp bases and white light sources for which exemptions were requested but not given. Particularly confusingly, some R7 lamps are exempted while others are not in a somewhat illogical manner.
The regulations now enter a consultation period during which member states can comment on them through their appropriate government body. In the UK, this is the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). BEIS have been well briefed by our industry and are aware of the issues. However, ideally the equivalent department in every member country would be lodging the same objections.
PLASA and other members of the Ecodesign Task Group are currently in discussion as to how best to proceed to ensure these outstanding issues are satisfactorily resolved.
For more information, or if you have any questions, please contact technical@plasa.org
Full texts:
• https://members.wto.org/crnattachments/2018/TBT/EEC/18_5215_00_e.pdf
• https://members.wto.org/crnattachments/2018/TBT/EEC/18_5215_01_e.pdf
• https://members.wto.org/crnattachments/2018/TBT/EEC/18_5216_00_e.pdf
• https://members.wto.org/crnattachments/2018/TBT/EEC/18_5216_01_e.pdf
(LSi Online)
