#SSL Update: The final phase is now upon us.

On Monday, December 17th, EU member states get to meet with the EU to discuss final concerns with and changes to the Ecodesign Lighting regulation, before a final text of the regulations is produced and voted in to law.

In the UK, the ALD, PLASA and ASPEC have been working hard with the UK Government department responsible for Ecodesign who will be at this meeting (BEIS - the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) to make sure they are fully aware of and briefed about the outstanding issues relating to entertainment lighting. We have had good and productive conversations with the BEIS team, and they believe they have already persuaded the EU to make changes to deal with two of our four outstanding points (about standby power and the definition of green in additive colour mixing lights). We have also worked with them to refine the list of ‘legacy’ lamp bases we are seeking an exemption for, removing some which there is no hope of winning or no point in fighting for (since tungsten versions of those lamps are already out of production), to better be able to defend lamps that we consider irreplaceable.

The same or a very similar position will be presented by a number of other key EU countries, including Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Malta.

We are hopeful all will agree that these requests have been carefully considered, are widely accepted across many EU member states, and reflect products for which no suitable LED alternatives are available or which, though LED based, cannot meet the efficiency requirements for particular reasons of science. We are therefore also hopeful that they will be incorporated into the final version of the Ecodesign regulation. If adopted, the changes would both continue to allow us access to some unique legacy light sources, and allow manufacturers to develop remarkable new lighting tools to carry us into the future.

That will give users and manufacturers stability for now, and time to start planning for the future: the next re-examination of these regulations is in a few years time in the EU. Of course no-one quite knows what that means for the UK yet...