Lighting requirements for high-rise dwellings proposed for energy standard

A proposal to set lighting requirements for high-rise dwellings in the energy standard published by ASHRAE and the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) is open for industry comment.

Fourteen addenda to ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2013, Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, are open for public comment from March 25 until April 24, 2016. Currently, lighting in dwelling units in high-rise buildings is exempt in both Standard 90.1 and ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.2, Energy Standard for Low-Rise Residential Buildings.

“In general, lighting within someone’s personal dwelling unit (home) has been exempt because it was not considered commercial, which is the focus of 90.1,” said Eric Richman, chair of the standard’s lighting subcommittee. “Over time, the lack of dwelling unit requirements in 90.1 presented a potential gap in energy savings. These new requirements would set efficacy minimums and/or controls for the lighting in dwelling unit spaces covered in the standard’s scope, which includes multi-family structures of four stories or above.”

The proposed requirements are similar to those in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR program for high efficacy lighting. The proposed efficacy requirements will effectively eliminate the use of incandescent/halogen sources as well as less efficacious products in the compact fluorescent (CFL) and light emitting diodes (LED) categories. To comment or learn more, visit here.