Design Light Consortium appears ready to accept Circadian Rhythm lighting enabling government rebates!

Design Light Consortium (“DLC”) tests and certifies lighting products that meet their requirements for quality efficacy and energy conservation. Many governmental agencies rely on their approval as a basis to provide economic incentives in the form of rebates to customers for saving energy. Since its inception many years ago, DLC has a maximum kelvin temperature that they will test/approve of 5000 kelvin for interior luminaires. Circadian Rhythm LED lighting, including WalaLight has been unable to apply for testing and approval. The appropriate nanometers of bright white light needed to suppress hormones such as Melatonin and release hormones such as Cortisol during the day corelates to a kelvin temperature of 6500 kelvin. Folks believe that DLC chose this white light as their maximum because a fixtures with surface mounted diodes or a LED tube at say 6500 kelvin will provide much glare and have a blueish tint to it. Basically it is an uncomfortable light for human eyes. Conversely, WalaLight mounts their diodes inside of their frame (side mounted) which then travels across a light guide to glow evenly without glare much like the moon versus a surface mounted fixture.

DLC is now considering including white tunable LED lighting without a maximum kelvin temperature as they understand that any true circadian light must exceed their preset kelvin ranges for approval. Yes, times change and it appears DLC is prepared to change with the market. It appears that these new guidelines for approval should be made in March 2018. This will provide lucrative rebates to purchasers of WalaLight, reducing the cost of this Zigbee meshed automatic system greatly. Harry Zuker, CEO of WalaLight applauds this change stating “feel, function and perform better while saving money opens up our market greatly”.

Final reports on DLC Testing and Reporting Requirements for Color Tunable Products projects are available for download