#SSL Update: Happy New Year!
The start of 2019 brings some good news - with, inevitably, a caveat.
The member states met on December 17th to discuss Ecodesign. It was, by all accounts, a good discussion, with the points made by the entertainment lighting industry strongly presented by a number of countries - and with the entertainment lighting community welcomed to the ‘ecodesign family’ in a speech by the head of the Commission’s Energy Efficiency Unit at an event after the meetings.
We haven’t seen the official final version of the text yet. We have, however, been given a peek at the changes which affect entertainment lighting.
Most of the points we raised have been addressed:
- there is a new paragraph specifically exempting network (DMX or equivalent)-controlled entertainment lighting fixtures from the 0.5W standby power requirement, which it would have been impossible for them to meet.
- the definition of green for additive colour mixing fixtures has been extended as we suggested.
- high output R7 linear floods (above 12,000 lumens) have been exempted - these are the lamps used in cyc floods and similar fixtures.
- there are exemptions for a number of other specialist lamps used in entertainment lighting, particularly low-voltage crown-silver lamps used in things like beamlights and Svoboda battens. The main loss is the tungsten M16 lamp as used in Birdies, but we think this was probably unwinnable and in any case tungsten M16 lamps are becoming hard to find and expensive to buy if you do find them.
All of these things are good. They will allow us to continue to use the tools we have and love for now. They will allow manufacturers to continue to develop innovative new lighting tools that we will love. And it gives us more time to transition to those new lighting tools.
However, the caveat: a new section has been added to the regulation. This section attempts to address some remaining white light sources including high-output white LED sources, some fluorescent sources used by the film industry, and the DWE tungsten lamp. The text for this is taken almost word for word from the entertainment industry/Pearle document. Unfortunately one critical word has been changed: the need for light sources to meet ‘one or more’ of the requirements listed has been changed to ‘two or more’. Since the list was constructed around ‘one or more’, none of the light sources described can meet ‘two or more’ and the whole section therefore effectively becomes redundant, meaning these light sources would not be exempt from the regulations.
We are raising this as a matter of high urgency with all involved. We hope that this can be resolved once the EU returns to work on January 7th.
Comments
Nick Moran
Tue, 08/01/2019 - 20:13
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Congratulations
Nick Moran