LED standards pushed

MANILA, Philippines–Greenlight LED Energy Solutions Inc. is urging local authorities such as the Department of Energy (DOE) to impose standards that will guide consumers looking for energy saving products.

Products using light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, are gaining popularity for enabling users to enjoy 60 percent in energy savings compared to traditional lighting products.

With LEDs becoming more ubiquitous in the retail market, having standards for LEDs and requiring retailers to show quality marks to guide customers will safeguard consumers against the dangers of fire and electrocution from the use of faulty products, Greenlight business development manager Jon Carlo G. Pangan said in an interview.

“Just like with Christmas lights where customers are encouraged to buy products with ICC (import commodity clearance) stickers, there should be standards for LEDs, especially since people would use them more often to enjoy energy savings,” Pangan said.

The DOE and the Department of Trade and Industry can work together to implement standard requirements for LED suppliers, Pangan said.

There are about 20 LED supplier-companies in the Philippines.

Company VP for marketing and communications Michael Edwin C. Mitre added that while standards for LEDs were not yet out, consumers could weed out unreliable suppliers by first finding suppliers that reveal the manufacturing company from which they source their products.

From there, consumers can do a background check on whether the brand they are buying is backed up by a company with a record for producing quality products.

Greenlight, Mitre said, makes no secret that it sources its LED products from Skyworth.

Skyworth is China’s top manufacturer of LED TVs and LED panel displays and uses semiconductor chips (the “heart” of LED technology) from Japan, the United States and Taiwan, Mitre said.

The DOE is promoting energy efficiency through the use of LEDs, power-efficient airconditioning, and other measures to ease electricity demand toward the summer of 2015.

A power crunch may take place by then as power demand exceeds supply given the use of cooling appliances, power plant outages, low performance from hydroelectric power stations, and possibly less capacity from gas-fired power facilities around the time of the one-month shutdown of the Malampaya gas field starting March to install a new platform.