The DesignLights Consortium (DLC) today released the final version of its updated Technical Requirements for Horticultural Lighting (Version 2.1). Scheduled to take effect September 1, the new policy establishes Qualified Products List eligibility for three additional product types and reflects changes made in response to stakeholder comments received this spring.
First unveiled last October and issued as a second draft in March, the DLC’s Horticultural Lighting Technical Requirements V2.1 adds direct current (DC)-powered fixtures, externally supplied actively cooled horticultural fixtures, and LED replacement lamps to the DLC’s Horticultural Lighting Program.
“In response to input from our stakeholders, the DLC is pleased to add these three new product types to our Horticultural Lighting Program beginning this September,” DLC Executive Director and CEO Christina Halfpenny said. “These changes are intended to help indoor growers make the jump from legacy lighting to state-of-the-art LED horticultural lighting products and are consistent with the DLC’s mission and desire to drive greater energy savings in the fast-growing horticultural lighting sector.”
Cooled horticultural fixtures
The V2.1 policy defines externally supplied actively cooled horticultural fixtures as those in which liquid, often water or a water/glycol solution, flows through input and output ports of each fixture in the system, channeled through a cooling plate or other heat exchangers within the fixture. In adding these products to its Horticultural Lighting Program, the DLC provides descriptions of how to test and report on them to ensure performance comparable to products listed under previous versions of the policy. In response to comments received following the release of Draft 2 in March, the DLC changed this section of the draft policy, revising requirements for reporting of data and corresponding images showing fixture-level input power and photosynthetic photon flux (PPF) as a function of inlet fluid temperature.
V2.1 also allows QPL listing for DC-powered fixtures and describes how to test and report on them in place of the typical equivalent alternating current (AC) testing and reporting. In response to stakeholder comments, the DLC changed this section of the policy from Draft 2, with revisions to the testing and reporting range of loading points required for the test power source report.
LED replacement lamps
For LED replacement lamps, the DLC responded to stakeholder input by changing the warranty requirement to three years instead of five, as had been proposed in Draft 2.
The DLC will host an informational webinar on the final Technical Requirements for Horticultural Lighting V2.1 at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT) on July 7.
For more information:
DesignLighth Consortium (DLC)
www.designlights.org