The US Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a new Caliper Snapshot on LED downlights that documents mean efficacy improvement of only 1 lm/W in the past 15 months, although manufacturers have been improving light quality with a rise in the typical CRI of such products. In funding news, the DOE announced eleven new research and development (R&D) grants — ten in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and one in the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program that both target critical advances in solid-state lighting (SSL).

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　　Downlight performance

　　The DOE issued a Snapshot reports on LED downlights just over a year ago. And we would not have expected another such report so soon. But clearly the agency is concerned that energy efficiency gains have stalled out in the downlight sector. The 1-lm/W gain over 15 months compares to a 7-lm/W gain for troffers, a 13-lm/W gain for industrial luminaires, a 10-lm/W gain for linear luminaires, a 10-lm/W gain for wallwashers, and a 5-lm/W gain for decorative lighting over the same period. Moreover, mean downlight efficacy is 69 lm/W whereas many of the other products mentioned are near or over 100 lm/W in mean efficacy. The DOE mines such data for Snapshot reports from the specifications entered for luminaires in the Lighting Facts database.