Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

This report is a product of our ongoing effort to support the development of high-quality yet affordable products for off-grid lighting in the developing world that have good potential to succeed in the market. The effort includes work to develop low-cost testing procedures, to identify useful performance metrics, and to facilitate the development of industry standards and product rating protocols. We conducted laboratory testing of nine distinct product lines. In some cases we also tested multiple generations of a single product line and/or operating modes for a product. The resultsare summarized in Table 1. We found that power consumption and light output varied by nearly a factor of 12, with efficacy varying by a factor of more than six. Of particular note, overall luminous efficacy varied from 8.2 to 53.1 lumens per watt. Color quality indices varied materially, especially for correlated color temperature. Maximum illuminance, beam candlepower, and luminance varied by 8x, 32x, and 61x respectively, suggesting considerable differences among products in terms of service levels and visual comfort. Glare varied by 1.4x, and was above acceptable thresholds in most cases. Optical losses play a role in overall performance, varying by a factor of 3.2 and ranging as high as 24percent. These findings collectively indicate considerable potential for improved product design.