Many of our Title 24 clients have been asking us whether they can safely specify LED fixtures that would qualify as “high efficacy” lighting under Title 24. Could one conceivably create an entire lighting plan for a custom home using mainly LEDs, and if so, would it pass Title 24? Would it look any different to the untrained eye? Would it actually use less energy? Or, are LEDs better used as a supporting component in a diversified lighting plan rather than as the main workhorse? Are LEDs sustainable to manufacture? Do they use less power in a real-life installation, not just in the lab?

The answer to LEDs in California is a qualified but definite yes. There are definitely products out there that will comply with California’s energy codes, and we should see more coming to market this coming year. The issue is not the LED lamp itself, but the housing, because the fixture’s efficacy depends on the entire assembly.Many of our Title 24 clients have been asking us whether they can safely specify LED fixtures that would qualify as “high efficacy” lighting under Title 24. Could one conceivably create an entire lighting plan for a custom home using mainly LEDs, and if so, would it pass Title 24? Would it look any different to the untrained eye? Would it actually use less energy? Or, are LEDs better used as a supporting component in a diversified lighting plan rather than as the main workhorse? Are LEDs sustainable to manufacture? Do they use less power in a real-life installation, not just in the lab?

LED Fixtures: Your Efficacy May Vary

The problem with lack of standardization in LED fixtures is that the lumens per watt can vary. Some LED fixtures – if properly certified by the manufacturer – would indeed qualify as high efficacy under Title 24. The lighting designer really has to know both the components and the product. It’s possible to have two cabinet runs of different lengths in a kitchen that both use the same LED product, where a short run under 15 watts would qualify and the other longer one over 40 watts would not.

“LED lighting market is very fluid and all over the map with respect to energy efficiency, controllability, and color quality,” observed Ed Cansino, a lighting designer whom we interviewed a few months ago on Green Compliance Plus. “Still no standards in sight. Therefore, every product must be evaluated for suitability on a case by case basis.”

How Long Will LED Fixtures Last?

What’s the life expectancy of LEDs? “Lots of claims”, says Chris Primous of Permlight, an Original Equipment Manufacturer supplying LED parts to other lighting manufacturers. “Remember that LEDs don’t fail the way incandescents do, all at once. They just get dimmer over time.” A general rule of thumb is 30,000-50,000 hours at 70% intensity, meaning that after 50,000 hours of use the LED would still be guaranteed to produce at least 70% of what it did when it was new.

Creating A Good White Light

The temperature of the light indicates whether it’s warm (yellowish) or cool (bluish) measured in Kelvins (K), using sunlight as the ideal or standard. Red-orange light at sunrise is 1800K; a single 100W Incandescent light bulb is 2850K; and an overcast sky is around 6500K. Another component of white light is its spectrum. A light source’s Color Rendering Index (CRI) measures how true or realistic colors will look under the light source. A white light made up of three pure wavelengths will not have the same rich color rendering as a continuous-spectrum white light. 

Most white LEDs are actually blue LEDs with a phosphor coating. These phosphors can vary, and the quality of the phosphor is what determines the quality of the resulting white light. It’s also possible to use “warmer” phosphors, which result in a warmer looking white. Some manufacturers like Cree LED Lighting are creating fixtures that utilize more than one of these techniques, and they may include amber, red, or orange LEDs inside larger arrays of a single fixture. Warmer white light looks better to our eyes, but with LEDs, the cooler the temperature, the higher the efficacy.

Are LEDs Really Eco-Friendly and Sustainable?

LEDs are touted as sustainable by environmentally minded consumers because they don’t contain mercury the way CFLs do, and they consume less energy than an incandescent. That doesn’t mean they’re perfect, though. 

“We just recently found out about the ‘lack of sustainability of LED’ products a few months ago at the IALD convention.  It has become a very hot topic, because of all the color variations, high price, and supposed long life,” says Hiram Banks. “Fluorescents are not ‘green’ because of the mercury in the lamp, but unlike LEDs, which require a lot of waste or bad product to make a few good products, the fluorescent lamp is good to go for each one manufactured.”

Banks explained what was so wasteful. “Currently LED manufacturers (about 5 major companies) will only sell entire bins/batches of LED’s to lighting manufacturers. The lighting manufacturers must sort through these purchased bins to individually pick the best white LEDs and discard the rest-typically these are sold on the third market to cut-rate LED manufacturers, whose LED’s are very blue/purple.”  (Chris Primous of Permlight clarified the binning for me as follows: products are sorted into bins by range, with a 200-300K difference within a single bin.)

Banks went on: “The amount of waste is enormous, which is one of the reasons why LED lighting is so expensive.  And believe it or not, the LED’s are bin selected by the human eye as there is no machine or device yet available that can accurately pick the same white color. ” Apparently, our eyes can’t do it, either, which is one reason why color variation continues to be a problem for LED fixtures.  

How do LEDs look in residential lighting designs?

I asked Hiram Banks whether he’d used LEDs and how those projects came out. “We do not accept different color variation, especially given the high cost of the installed product,” Banks responded. “For our projects that have LED, mainly in long continuous runs, we are requiring them to install the same batch/bin produced in an effort to get the color correct.  And on some of our jobs the LED manufacturer has to come back and pay to replace certain lengths of LED that do not match.”

“Each LED manufacturer has their own Kelvin Temperature curve or standard that they adhere to, and we have samples from each LED manufacturer, so we can match our other specified sources.  So far, the better LED manufacturers have supported us by replacing LED that is not consistent or has different color variation, so our clients get the right product in the end.  The only problem I have is the amount of waste involved…  We are now taking a different approach to minimize the waste such as requiring all the runs be in the same batch/bin. This has helped tremendously.”

What can you do with LEDs?

The very lack of standards is also a driver of diversity when it comes to fixture types and designs. At Henry Chu’s shop we saw a good sampling of products and saw for ourselves the color quality. LED-based desk lights, spots and strip lights seemed to work well, and came in both “warm” and “cool” whites. Both the color rendering and edge crispness were surprisingly good – proof that quality components make all the difference. The white light was worlds apart from the dim, grayish “white” from the cheaper LED flashlights and desk lights. 

Chu showed us an LED-based MR-16 equivalent that uses the directional nature of LEDs, and produces an almost-halogen equivalent at a fraction of the power consumption. This was a 3-watt model that can replace the MR-16, with its own driver and airflow built right into the base of the fixture. The cost? $25. Chu also showed us flexible LED strip lighting. And… many of Chu’s products were fully dimmable, and compatible with low-voltage wiring.

(We’ll do a follow-up article with more information on some of these products, with photos.)