The new C22.2 No. 1993-09, “Self-Ballasted Lamps and Lamp Adapters”—harmonized with the U.S.A. and Mexico—will help ensure, says CSA, that all CFLs and similar lights sold in North America adhere to a common standard for safety.

“CSA Standards and counterparts in Mexico and the U.S. recognized that consumer concerns surrounding the end-of-life cycle of CFLs could present a barrier to the market acceptance of these energy-efficient products and jointly developed new, harmonized standards to address their concerns,” said Stephen Brown, director, Electro-technical Program, CSA Standards.

End-of-life refers to a CFL no longer operating at full capacity as it becomes depleted and reaches the end of its useful life cycle. Some early models of CFLs would become hot when they reached their EOL, resulting in smoking of the units, or the base of the lamp becoming discoloured or deformed

C22.2 No. 1993-09 covers requirements for lamp types such as fluorescent, CFL, high-intensity discharge, LED and tungsten-halogen. It includes minimum material specification for the plastic housing and several additional EOL product tests that better simulate potential failure modes. It is harmonized with UL 1993 and the Mexican NMX-J-578/1-ANCE standards. It does not address concerns relating to mercury content.

CSA Standards in Canada, UL in the States and Mexico’s National Association of Standardization and Certification for the Electrical Sector (ANCE) jointly developed the standard as members of CANENA (a Spanish acronym for the not-for-profit Council for Harmonization of Electro-technical Standards of the Nations of the Americas).

CSA STANDARDS