Welcome to the second issue of the lites.asia newsletter

In this issue, we provide an update on the first lites.asia webinar on IEC lighting developments relevant to the region, provide details of the next webinar, ask for your views on draft consumer guidelines for LEDs and give initial results of our survey of national testing laboratory capability

In this issue, we provide an update on the first lites.asia webinar on IEC lighting developments relevant to the region, provide details of the next webinar, ask for your views on draft consumer guidelines for LEDs and give initial results of our survey of national testing laboratory capability.

First lites.asia webinar

Representatives from seven countries ‘attended’ the first lites.asia webinar on 19 April 2012. This discussed the key outcomes affecting lites.asia members from the IEC maintenance meetings held in Auckland, New Zealand on 26-30 March 2012.

Hosted by David Boughey from the Australian Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency and Owen Manley from Lighting Council Australia, the online meeting covered issues including:

Progress with IEC 60969, Self-ballasted lamps for general lighting services – performance requirements.
An update on LED activities, including progress with standards development and production of an agreed set of universal terms and definitions.

Also covered in the webinar was an update on the complementary work by the International Energy Agency 4E Solid State Lighting Annex to develop performance tiers for LED lighting.

A copy of the presentation used during the webinar can be found here, along with a summary of the outcomes and information from the meetings compiled by Roberto Cristobal, Chairman of the Philippine National Committee of the IEC, who attended the meetings on behalf of lites.asia.

The next webinar is scheduled for Thursday 5 July 2012 at 04:00 UCT/05:00 GMT/0930 IST/1100 ICT/1200 CST and will provide feedback on the IEC TC34 project team meetings and LED workshop held on 11-15 June 2012, Dornbirn, Austria.

Draft consumer guidelines for LEDs – your comments, please

As the availability of LED replacements for domestic incandescent lamps continues to grow, it is increasingly important that consumers have the information that they need in order to identify quality products appropriate to their needs.

Draft consumer guidelines for LEDs tabled at the last lites.asia meeting in Singapore provide information for consumers on common performance indicators for LEDs, such as incandescent lamp equivalence claims, light output, lifetime, warranty period, light appearance, energy efficiency and safety. They also signpost where consumers can find additional information.

In order to get consensus on the content of these guidelines and which criteria should be included, lites.asia would like your views on:

The relevance of the guidelines for your country.
Whether the correct information has been included – should more be added, should any items be removed or amended.
Whether the level of detail is appropriate for consumers.
Whether other sources of information should be included.

The draft guidelines are available here and your comments should be sent to by 15 July 2012. These comments will then be amalgamated with those received during the discussion at the next lites.asia meeting on 28-29 June 2012 in Hanoi, Vietnam, and a final version posted on the lites.asia website for use by governments, manufacturers, retailers and consumers throughout the region.

National testing laboratory capability – building a broader picture

As a first step towards the objective agreed at the lites.asia meeting in Singapore to “Create regional partnerships on testing and organize round robin tests to build laboratory experience and capacity” lites.asia circulated a testing laboratory survey amongst Singapore meeting participants in January 2012. The aims of this survey are to help develop an understanding of the lighting testing capacity of laboratories in Asia, identify opportunities for harmonization, common accreditation and mutual recognition and to identify needs regarding testing of LED and CFL based products.

Responses are still being collected, but initial indications are:

There is sufficient regional and national laboratory capability for CFL testing, but not for the testing of LEDs.
In principle countries would be willing to share testing information, although with very specific limitations on the type of data to be shared, particularly that which may appear in the public domain.
There is a considerable desire to share testing experience and/or training to develop understanding of differing testing protocols.
The majority of respondents would also consider sharing testing capacity.
Respondents would recommend laboratories obtain regional accreditation but there is some scepticism on the appropriateness of existing schemes.

In order to build a broader picture of testing laboratory capability in the region, lites.asia would like additional feedback on this subject. The survey questionnaire can be accessed here and any further submissions should be sent to by 15 July 2012. This information will be combined with the responses we have already received and analysed in the light of the discussion scheduled for the next lites.asia meeting on 28-29 June 2012 in Hanoi, Vietnam. This analysis will be available on the lites.asia website in due course.