DOE Publishes CALiPER Report on LED PAR38 lamps

The U.S. Department of Energy’s CALiPER program has released Report 20.2, part of a series of investigations on LED PAR38 lamps. The report focuses on dimming, flicker and power quality characteristics evaluated with a single dimmer. It found the performance of LED PAR38 lamps was less consistent than that of conventional halogen PAR38s. Among the trends that emerged: most produced more light than benchmark halogen PAR38s; almost all of the LED PAR38s exhibited less flicker than a magnetically ballasted fluorescent lamp, and more than two-thirds exhibited flicker less than or comparable to that of a halogen lamp; and nearly one-third had a power factor less than 0.5 at some point over the dimming range, which would not meet the standard.