Oct 24 2014
Intertek, a leading provider of quality and safety services to a wide range of industries around the world, is helping to put illumination into the spotlight.
An innovation in lighting and energy efficiency has been recognized with one of the world’s most prestigious awards. The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, and Shuji Nakamura for their work creating the blue LED light in the early 1990s. The addition of the blue LED to existing red and green LEDs, developed decades earlier, “enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources,” according to the Nobel Committee. As the industry-leading testing and certification company for lighting products, Intertek recognizes this brilliance and supports innovation through its own expertise.
Light-emitting diode (LED) lights, beyond simply offering an alternative to incandescent or fluorescent lights, have functionality across a broader range of industries and applications, including in the medical and high-tech fields. They are acknowledged to be more energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly light sources, allowing manufacturers to utilize LED innovations in new product development.
Intertek offers a range of quality, safety, performance, regulatory compliance, labeling, and advisory services for LED modules, arrays, lamps, luminaires, and lighting controls. Intertek services help to ensure the safety and performance of lighting products – including testing the veracity of claims of energy efficiency or environmental impact. Intertek’s lighting capabilities include testing wattage, temperature, color, intensity distribution, light appearance, irradiance, radiance, electromagnetic compatibility, energy cost, life expectancy, and mercury content. Lighting products can receive Intertek’s ETL Mark, which proves compliance to all requisite North American safety standards, as well as the CE Mark or equivalent marks for other global markets.
“Intertek is committed to supporting improvements and innovations in the technology and energy sectors across the globe. Intertek works with manufacturers to test, improve, and verify LED products that last longer, are more efficient, and are safer to use,” said Richard Adams, Intertek Senior Vice President. “We are proud to be engaged with a technology that is improving possibilities for illumination and quality of life around the world, and that is also aligned with Intertek’s commitment to reducing environmental impact and improving sustainable business practices.”
Intertek’s experience with the certification and testing of LEDs is extensive in both retrofitting LEDs to traditional lighting products and also in developing entirely new applications for LED technology. Intertek’s depth of services and expertise in global lighting regulations and technologies provides guidance to developers and manufacturers across the consumer and residential, commercial and industrial, transportation, and infrastructure markets.