Govt. to introduce Minimum Energy Performance Standards soon

By Charumini de Silva

In an effort to promote high energy efficient LED lights and control low energy efficient appliances, the Government is planning to implement Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) in the immediate future, a senior official said.

“Currently there is a huge variety of LED products in the market and introducing MEPS is important to create a benchmark. Initially we will be issuing green labels for the better performing LED lights under the voluntary scheme. After studying the market behaviour, we hope to make the energy label mandatory,” Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority (SLSEA) Deputy Director General – Strategy Harsha Wickremesinghe said.

Speaking at the Sri Lanka LED and Energy Saving Industry Forum hosted by Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), he said that the mandatory labelling would come into place within the next two years. Energy labelling enables the consumer to identify consumption levels and efficiency rating. At the same time it becomes a promotional tool for manufacturers, importers and dealers of energy efficient products.

Noting that LED performance measurement is a tricky trade, he said under the MEPS, LEDs that have minimum 75 lumens or passes that criteria would attract a green label. (Lumens measure how much light you are getting from a bulb; more lumens mean it’s a brighter light; fewer lumens means it’s a dimmer light).

Noting that SLSEA foresees a great future for LEDs as it would become the mainstream lighting solution for the next generation, Wickremesinghe pointed out it was important to implement the MEPS in order to restrictinferior quality LED products reaching the Sri Lankan market.

“With the introduction of MEPS, lower performing lamps will be stopped at the port itself and reshipped. There is going to be an accelerated appliance control strategy — a pre-inspection associated with imported products, which will allow us to reject inferior quality LEDs at the port,” he explained.

The main hindrances to sustainable growth of the LED market in Sri Lanka include not having right standards enforced and the cost factor. Most of the products in the market at present do not deliver the quality performance they boast of, thereby misleading the consumers.

In addition SLSEA will launch a major Demand Side Management (DMS) program for the next fiveyears titled‘Operation Energy Efficiency,’ where the Government is planning to save up to 1,000GWh of electricity by 2020.  

Commenting on challenges in the industry, it was pointed out that in a rapidly-evolving market, behaviour of price and implementation of standards were imperative to have a sustainable energy marketplace.

“Prices in the world market seem to be crashing. We have never seen this sort of price reduction coming in for any other products that have been marketed here or in this region. That is one of the challenges we need to address and the other is waste management. It creates an environmental hazard as we go along, hencethe high need for standards and we need to push it hard to implement as fast as possible,” Hayleys Consumer Products›s Abdul Zubair pointed out.

He also noted that SLSEA was in a dilemma given the rapid pace at which the market was evolving, which made it very difficult for the authority to set a standard.

“They are going to set the minimum standard on 75 lumens per watt, but today it is about 100 lumens per watt. I think this has to be reviewed on a monthly basis. Therefore, in an evolving market like this, I think we need to have a better understanding with the Government as well as the stakeholders to have proper standards to implement and make it operative,” Hayleys Consumer Products›s Abdul Zubair said.