Since September 2021 the label runs from A to G instead of up to A++, and the bar has been raised considerably. A perfectly good LED spot now comes out at F or G. That is not a bad product, that is a label deliberately leaving room for technology that does not exist yet.
What changed in 2021
The old label ran from E to A++, and after years of LED development almost everything in the shops sat at A, A+ or A++. At that point the label said nothing: you could not compare two lamps with it.
Regulation (EU) 2019/2015 therefore reset the scale to A through G and redrew the boundaries. From 1 September 2021 every new light source had to carry the new label. Products already on the shelves could keep the old one for another eighteen months, until March 2023.
The result: a lamp that was A++ yesterday dropped to D the next day. Nothing about the lamp changed. Only the ruler moved.
Why almost nothing reaches an A
That is by design. The top classes are set so that there is room to improve for years to come. Class A calls for an efficiency that no ordinary consumer lamp currently reaches.
Look at our own catalogue and you see exactly that picture: of the products that list a label, most sit at G and the rest at F. Among them are spots reaching 100 lumens per watt, such as the Ferro with 600 lumens out of 6 watts. That is excellent efficiency and the label is still an F.
A 50 watt halogen spot managed about 15 lumens per watt. On this scale such a lamp could not even be sold any more. So the difference between F and G is not the difference between good and bad, but between very efficient and slightly more efficient.
What else is on the label
Two things more useful than the letter itself:
- Consumption per 1,000 burning hours, in kilowatt hours. With that you work out your annual cost directly, with no conversion of your own.
- A QR code pointing to the EPREL database, the European product register. That holds the full data sheet for that exact article.
That QR code is the most interesting part of the new label. What a manufacturer writes in its own webshop is marketing; what sits in EPREL is a legal declaration.
What you should actually watch
The label measures one thing: lumens per watt. It says nothing about colour temperature, colour rendering, flicker or lifespan. A spot with a mediocre label can have far better colour rendering than a more efficient neighbour.
You see that in our catalogue. The Lesto 5W in chrome carries label G and has colour rendering above Ra 97, the highest we stock. The Movo sits at F with Ra 80. On electricity the Movo wins; on how your skin and your food look, the Lesto wins by a mile.
Work out for yourself what the difference is in euros. At three hours a day, one watt costs about 30 cents a year. More on that in What does LED lighting cost in electricity per year?
In short
Use the label to compare lamps with each other, not to decide whether something is efficient. All LED is efficient. Do not be put off by an F or a G; in lighting that is simply the top of the market right now. The range is at recessed spotlights.
Why does my LED lamp have label F or G?
Because the scale was redrawn in September 2021. What was A++ then is roughly D now. Classes A and B were deliberately left empty for future technology.
Is a lamp with label D better than one with label F?
More efficient yes, better not necessarily. The label looks only at lumens per watt and says nothing about colour temperature, colour rendering or lifespan.
Where do I find the official data for a lamp?
Through the QR code on the label, which points to the European EPREL database. That holds the data sheet the manufacturer was legally required to submit.