The DesignLights Consortium® (DLC) promotes quality, performance and energy efficient commercial sector lighting solutions through collaboration among its federal, regional, state, utility, and energy efficiency program members, luminaire manufacturers, lighting designers, and other industry stakeholders throughout the US and Canada.
Understanding these standards can be a long complicated process so we have broken it down so you can have a firm grasp of what your company will need to know about passing DLC.
This chart tells you the basics of what specifications your product needs to meet in order to pass DLC. Think of it as kind of a check list of what your product must fulfill. Here for a breakdown of what each category means and why it’s important.
| Application | This determines what kind of fixture you will be submitting for approval. Subsequent columns are the numbers this fixture must meet. | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Light Output |
This is the minimum light output needed to pass the DLC test requirements. | |
| Zonal Lumen Density |
This is the minimum amount of lumens (lm) that are needed in the described area of what your product is lighting. | |
| Minimum Luminaire Efficacy |
This is the minimum amount of lumens that should be produced per watt of output your product has. | |
| Allowable CCTs (ANSI C78.377-2008) |
Correlated Color Temp (CCT) relates to what color light your product is outputting. This represents the limit of what color you can produce for its application. | |
| Minimum CRI | Color Rating Index (CRI) relates to how similar of a wavelength your product makes in relation to the sun. This tells you the minimum of how similar it should be. | |
| L70 Minimum Maintenance |
This tells you the amount of hours your product must run before it is acceptable for its output to drop below 70%. See TM-21 and Energy Star® for more details. | |
| Warranty | This is the minimum amount of time that DLC requires your product to remain under warranty. |
| Performance Metric | Tolerance |
|---|---|
| Light Output | -10% |
| Luminaire Efficacy | .3% |
| Allowable CCT | Defined by ANSI C78.377† |
| CRI | -2 points |
| Power Factor | -3% |
| Total Harmonic Distortion | 5% |
Fortunately, you are giving a little bit of wiggle room in case your product does not meet the strict requirements for DLC. The Tolerances Chart tells you the respective amount of tolerance your product can have and still pass DLC standards.
To see how much room for error you have, apply the tolerance variance number to your appropriate DLC application that you are testing.
Click HERE for more information on the tests we offer and how they can help YOU pass your DLC Submission.
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