Renovate Lighting for More Energy Savings

LightingEurope welcomes the publication of the EU ‘Fit for 55’ package today, which transforms the EU’s ambition to deliver 36-39% of energy efficiency savings for final and primary energy consumption by 2030 into binding legislation.

Lighting will help deliver the energy savings the EU needs. “Europe’s lighting industry already has the innovative technologies and products we need.  Renovating buildings to transition to LED-based lighting systems, integrating controls and sensors, will not only deliver up to 48-56 TWh of electricity annually by 2050[1] - it will also offer significant benefits to the occupant’s visual comfort, wellbeing, and productivity,” says Ourania Georgoutsakou, Secretary General of LightingEurope.

The new EU Ecodesign and Energy Labelling requirements for light sources apply as of 1st September 2021 and will further increase the energy efficiency of lighting products placed on the EU market. The EU Green Deal and the Renovation Wave Initiative call for the doubling of building renovation rates – buildings account for 40 % of the EU’s total energy consumption and 36 % of all greenhouse gas emissions.

“EU policies and national funding must now help accelerate the installation of the lighting technologies & products that will deliver benefits for people and the planet,” adds Georgoutsakou. “We know today that light impacts our bodies and how we feel. Innovative lighting technologies can deliver the right light, at the right time and at the right place – different lighting for when we wake up and when we’re preparing for bed, for when we’re at our desk, for our children in a classroom, for the older person who needs more light. Let’s make sure that there is no renovation without lighting,” Georgoutsakou concludes.

Background: Today marks the publication of the EU ‘Fit for 55’ package. The package sets the ambition to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030. The amended Energy Efficiency Directive, which entered into force in 2018, set an EU energy efficiency savings target for 2030 of at least 32.5%. The revised proposal, which was published today, requires that these savings reach 36-39% for final and primary energy consumption respectively by 2030. This corresponds to an increased annual energy savings obligation of 1.5% for all Member States in the European Union.

[1] Energy savings for optimised lighting systems (both indoors and outdoors) with controls. VITO et al. (commissioned by the European Commission), Preparatory study on lighting systems ‘ENER Lot 37’ (Brussels, 15 December 2016), p. 331