Fact-Checking the Lighting Labels

By Patricia Daukantas

Did you know that, in the United States, some LED lamps will sport an easy-to-read specification label, similar to the “Nutrition Facts” panel on packaged foods? Do you trust these labels to be accurate?

Since most of us buy more food than LEDs, we probably haven’t noticed – yet – the “Lighting Facts” label on the latter’s packaging. LightingFacts.com is the public face of a joint effort by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Next Generation Lighting Industry Alliance to give consumers an idea of how solid-state lamps will perform, and thus boost consumer confidence in the cutting-edge products.

According to the Web site, the label lists the product’s light output, energy consumption, efficacy (in lumens per watt), color rendering index and correlated color temperature, among other data. A Residential Product Performance Scale (PDF) is supposed to explain to the consumer what all this technological terminology means.

However, today a New York Times blog reported that the Energy Department has already found 25 instances of “label misuse,” ranging from companies that just wanted to create their own labels to companies that may have been stretching the facts a little. (LEDs Magazine detailed one case of the former.) Each product participating in Lighting Facts gets its own registration number, making it easy to verify on the program’s Web site.

The Lighting Facts program is only 10 months old, and most of us still light our homes and offices with incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. It will be interesting to see how the labeling affects consumers’ choices as more solid-state lighting appears in the marketplace.