Update on the EuP process for Directional lamps

Posted August 6, 2009 // Tagged as Blog // 7 Comments ↓

As many of you are aware, having succeeded in banning the incandescent lamp as of September this year, the process to review Energy Using Products ( EuP) has proceeded to tackle reflector lamps and domestic light fittings. Earlier in the year, between February and May the draft chapters of the report were posted on the website http://www.eup4light.net/. As the PLDA “stakeholder” I went through the chapters critically and produced comment documents for each chapter, these are also on the EUP4Light website.

The Stakeholder’s meeting was held in Brussels on the 26th May and was supposed to answer the comments that had been made. It was pretty clear that VITO, the company being paid to do the research and report writing, could not produce a coherent case for the banning of most Tungsten Halogen reflector lamps as there are no acceptable replacement technologies. They did, however invent a new metric, Lumens per Euro that combines initial cost, and estimate of the cost of energy used throughout the lamp’s life. Of course this metric works entirely in the favour of LEDs.

The final chapter and recommendations for the legislation were not provided, these will be provided in August with about three weeks to comment and the final report will be published on September 30th. At this point , unlike the first stage there will be no further comment nor any further meetings to address the stakeholder’s concerns. This will be a done deal. Given the risk of further extremely inappropriate legislation I find this somewhat unacceptable.

I urge you to log on to the eup4light website, register and have a look at the working papers and comments section. Please let me know if you have any difficulties registering and accessing this information and I will try and help. Meanwhile watch this space and I will report back once the final chapter is open for comments.

Kevan Shaw

7 Responses

  1. Cerenkov

    September 10th, 2009 at 23:51

    Don’t you think that most of the bulb ban “legis”lation is illegal even within “EU logic” simply because the bans often violate one or more of the criteria specified in Article 15, No. 5 of “DIRECTIVE 2005/32/EC”?

  2. Andras Toth

    September 11th, 2009 at 10:00

    you claim that there will be no more opportunity to provide stakeholder comments on the upcoming legislation on directional lamps, unlike in the case of non-directional household lamps.

    This is incorrect. The procedure is exactly the same in both cases. After the publication of VITO’s chapter 8, comments can be submitted to them in writing until the finalisation of their report.

    On the basis of their report + the comments received on Chapter 8, the Commission services will establish a working document for stakeholder consultation in the Ecodesign Consultation Forum. It is only after this stakeholder consultation that will we proceed to draft the legislation, have Member States experts vote on it, send it for the scrutiny of the European Parliament and of the Council, and then adopt it (if it does not get stuck in the meantime).

    Best regards

    Andras Toth
    Policy Officer

  3. Kevan Shaw

    September 11th, 2009 at 10:31

    @ Cernkov,

    Thank you for your comment. I am but a mere lighting designer and barely equipped to fathom the true meaning behind the wording of specific EU legislation. It seems that logical interpretation does not apply! The basic wording of EuP requires the changes not to have a negative impact on the quality of the products however I and many others maintain that a CFLi is a substantially lower quality product than an incandescent lamp from every factor with the possible exception of energy in use!

  4. Roy

    December 10th, 2009 at 14:49

    Tell me about the wording of EU legislation!

  5. peter dublin

    January 9th, 2010 at 16:42

    Roy
    see links http://ceolas.net/#li01inx
    main one http://ec.europa.eu/energy/efficiency/ecodesign/doc/committee/2008_12_08_technical_briefing_household_lamps.pdf
    = scroll to bottom

  6. Robin

    May 11th, 2010 at 12:22

    Can anyone point me in the right direction to look up all legislation current and legislation to be introduced for directional lighting ?

    I keep going round in circles and ending back up with non-directional legislation.

    Any help will be greatly appreciated!

  7. Kevan Shaw

    May 11th, 2010 at 13:16

    I am afraid that there is little still around on this. The situation is in flux. The stakeholder process was finished last September and the report with proposals was completed and published HERE. The legislation is supposed to be drafted based on this report however the date for this has been delayed every month since October 09 though we are supposed to have the opportunity to comment on the draft before it is submitted to the European Parliament! We wait with baited breath for this!

    Kevan Shaw

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