Today, the IEA 4E Solid State Lighting Annex formally announces the launch of the 2017 Interlaboratory Comparison (IC 2017) of goniophotometer measurements. IC 2017 is open to all photometric labs that use goniophotometers for testing LED lighting products, and is organised primarily to compare goniophotometric measurements of LED luminaires and narrow-beam LED lamps.

This new interlaboratory comparison will study the equivalence of different types of goniophotometers, e.g., far-field goniophotometers and near-field goniophotometers, and investigate the measurement variations and the capability of participating laboratories using goniophotometers to measure LED lighting products. The IEA 4E SSL Annex hopes that this work could promote reliable SSL testing worldwide and also to provide useful data for the international lighting community.

“We are very pleased to be launching our second global interlaboratory comparison, building on the success of IC 2013 which compared over 100 laboratories around the world,” said Dr. Peter Bennich, chair of the SSL Annex’s Management Committee and representative of the Swedish Energy Agency. Sweden is one of the Annex’s member countries.  “With LED luminaires and lamps becoming more and more common in the market, its critical for policy makers that there are reliable, accredited laboratories all around the world who are proficient at measuring high-quality, energy-efficient solid-state lighting.”

IC 2017 is designed in compliance with ISO/IEC 17043 to serve as a proficiency test for SSL testing accreditation programmes that recognise this comparison. IC 2017 uses CIE S 025/E:2015, Test Method for LED Lamps, LED Luminaires and LED Modules as the test method for LED performance measurement. If recognised by accreditation bodies, the participant results reports may be used as a proficiency test for CIE S 025 as well as regional test methods such as EN 13032-4 (Europe, equivalent to CIE S 025); LM-79 (USA); KS C 7653 and KS C 7651 (Korea), JIS C7801 and JIS C8105-5 (Japan), and possibly also for accreditation programmes in China and other countries.

Participating laboratories will be asked to measure a set of four SSL product artefacts (i.e., an indoor LED panel luminaire, an indoor linear LED luminaire, a LED street lighting luminaire, and a narrow-beam LED lamp) using their goniophotometer or gonio-spectroradiometer for 14 measurement quantities. These include electrical quantities, total luminous flux, luminous efficacy, colour quantities (spatially-averaged), as well as goniophotometric quantities such as luminous intensity distribution, partial luminous flux, centre-beam intensity, beam angle, and angular colour uniformity. Colour quantities may be measured with an integrating sphere system with a spectroradiometer.

IC 2017 is using CIE S 025/E:2015 as the test method for testing the lamp and luminaires in this interlaboratory comparison.  “We decided to use this international standard as the basis of our interlaboratory comparison because it offers us the best method for conducting a proficiency test on the measurement of LED lighting products” said Dr Yoshi Ohno at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and Task Leader for IC 2017. “This IC will build upon our previous work in 2013 and help us to strengthen lighting metrology around the world and identify any measurement problems in the participating laboratories.”

Registration is open to all countries, but the applicants from IEA 4E SSL Annex member countries (i.e., Australia, Denmark, France, Korea, Sweden, UK and USA) will receive a discount on the fee and priority (if the number of participants reaches the limit). There will also be a discount available to all applicants for early registration (30 June – 31 July 2017).  Registration will be open until 30 September 2017 or until all available spaces in IC 2017 are booked. The registration fees, which include shipping costs both ways, are:

• Early Registration – SSL Annex member country:  €4,900
• Early Registration – non-member country:  €5,100
• Registration after July 31 – SSL Annex member country:  €5,100
• Registration after July 31 – Non-member country:  €5,300
• Each additional goniophotometer at same location: €1,000

There will be three rounds of measurement by each Nucleus Laboratory, to be conducted sequentially in the period from September 2017 to June 2018.  Participants will be assigned from the first round in the order of payment received (or they can request a later round).  Registration is open from 30 June to 30 September or until all spaces are filled.

About the IEA 4E SSL Annex:

The SSL Annex was established in 2010 under the framework of the International Energy Agency’s Energy Efficient End-use Equipment (4E) Implementing Agreement to provide advice to its member countries seeking to implement quality assurance programmes for SSL lighting. This international collaboration was originally established by the governments of Australia, Denmark, France, Japan, The Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States of America. Further information on the 4E SSL Annex is available from: https://ssl.iea-4e.org/

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