CSA Standards officially announced the publication of a new, tri-national standard for common screw-in household energy-efficient lights that goes beyond traditional requirements for electrical safety “to help address consumer concerns regarding the end-of-life (EOL) cycle of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs)”.

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