DoLEDLast - Does LED products last to give the promised energy savings?

The high energy efficacy and long lifetime of LED products provides huge energy savings. Typically, lifetime of LED products is stated in the interval 25.000-50.000 hours. They don’t always meet their rated lifetime and fail prematurely, destroying the expected energy savings. Expensive and time-consuming lifetime compliance tests are rarely performed, and are not compatible with the short development time and shelf life of LED products. 

The EU commission has adopted a new eco-design regulation for light sources, setting demands for efficacy and endurance of LED products. As of September 2021 the rated lifetime of LED products by the industry, must be verified using the new endurance test. This test will include thermal stress and may identify premature failures. This creates an urgent need for the industry to understand the new demands, the effect of the test and how it can be performed. 

The hypothesis is that the new endurance test predicts the actual lifetime of LED products better and stresses them more. The project will investigate the lifetime of different LED products using the new method and compare results with earlier used methods and rated lifetimes. 

New automatic monitoring systems for laboratory and industrial measurements that follows the endurance test will be developed. Tests will be carried out on project partners LED products, and LED products on the market. New models estimating the lifetime of LED products in different applications will be developed and results from the project will be disseminated to the scientific society, lighting industry and consumers.