Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced version 1.2 of Energy Star lighting specifications, and released a third draft of the standard version 1.0 of the Energy Star lighting specifications. Lighting specifications version 1.2 contains requirements for the design of the directional and non-directional solid state lighting devices, while lighting specifications version 1.0 mainly for alternative light source lamp.

        In lighting specifications version 1.2, a major change is that it removes the released plan which requires the efficacy to reach 70 lm/W before September 1^st 2013. At present the EPA keeps the efficacy requirement in 65lm/W, until the standard version 2.0 comes out.

     The third draft of lighting specifications version 1.0 is mainly used as industry overview. The new draft clarifies thelighting products that approved by Energy Star as well as those doesn’t comply with the Energy Star standard. In addition, it modifies the contents of the high-temperature life testing, and also makes a small change on requirements of light intensity distribution and dyeing uniformity.