Reference
Standards and sources referenced on this site
Every standard, technical report and paper cited across these notes, what each one actually governs, which pages discuss it, and where to obtain the current edition from the body that publishes it.
Nothing on this site reproduces the content of a standard. The tables in EN 12464-1, CIE 117 or IES LM-80 are the licensed product of the bodies that developed them, they are revised on their own schedule, and a value transcribed onto a web page is a value nobody updates afterwards. What these notes do instead is name the document, say what it governs, and describe the specific way it gets misread on a tender — which is the part you cannot buy.
That approach only works if you can find the document. This page is the index: forty or so publications referenced across the site, grouped by the body that issues them, each with a one-line statement of scope and a link to the pages here that discuss it. Links go to the publisher, not to a copy — where a standard is sold, we send you to the shop that sells it.
Before you buy anything
Three things decide whether a document is the one you need, and all three are easy to get wrong.
Edition. Standards are revised, sometimes materially. EN 12464-1 changed substantially in 2021 — task-area structure, cylindrical illuminance, modelling — and a specification written against the 2011 text is not wrong so much as answering a different question. Always check the edition your contract names.
Jurisdiction. An IEC standard becomes enforceable through national adoption. The same technical content reaches you as EN 60598 in Europe, BS EN 60598 in the United Kingdom, GB 7000 in China. Your building control officer cares about the adopted version, not the parent.
Scope. The most expensive errors in lighting procurement come from applying a package-level document to a luminaire, or a performance standard to a safety question. LM-80 describes LED packages on a test board. LM-79 describes an assembled luminaire. Both are legitimate; quoting one for the other is a category error, and it is the most common one in this industry.
IEC — International Electrotechnical Commission
The origin of most electrical safety and performance requirements for luminaires and control gear worldwide. Current editions are sold through the IEC Webstore; in Europe most of these appear as EN IEC equivalents through CEN-CENELEC and their national member bodies.
| Document | What it governs | Discussed in |
|---|---|---|
| IEC 60068 series | Environmental testing procedures — damp heat, thermal cycling, vibration. | Burn-in and ageing tests |
| IEC 60081 | Double-capped fluorescent lamps; the source of the chromaticity tolerance conventions LED product inherited. | Colour consistency and SDCM |
| IEC 60529 | Degrees of protection provided by enclosures — the IP code, its digit definitions and the test behind each. | IP and IK ratings outdoors |
| IEC 60898-1 | Circuit breakers for household and similar installations — the B, C and D instantaneous tripping bands. | Driver matching and inrush |
| IEC 60929 Annex E | The 1–10 V analogue control interface, and the source/sink convention that decides whether two devices can be wired together. | Dimming protocol selection |
| IEC 61000-4-5 | Surge immunity test — the combination-wave definition and the test levels a withstand claim refers to. | Surge protection |
| IEC 61347-2-13 | Safety requirements for electronic control gear for LED modules. | Driver matching, driver compliance window |
| IEC 61547 | EMC immunity requirements for general lighting equipment. | Surge protection |
| IEC TR 61547-1 | Technical report giving the measurement method for the short-term flicker indicator PstLM. | Flicker: PstLM and SVM |
| IEC 61643-11 | Low-voltage surge protective devices — requirements, test methods and the Type 1/2/3 classification. | Surge protection |
| IEC 62262 | Protection against external mechanical impact — the IK code and its impact energies. | IP and IK ratings outdoors |
| IEC 62384 | Performance requirements for LED control gear, including how the output range is declared. | Driver matching, driver compliance window |
| IEC 62386 series | DALI, including the DALI-2 parts covering control devices and part 202 for emergency lighting gear. | Dimming protocol selection, emergency lighting |
| IEC 62717 | LED module performance requirements, including declaration of the L and B lumen-maintenance values. | L70, LM-80 and TM-21, maintained illuminance |
| IEC 62722-2-1 | LED luminaire performance requirements and the values a manufacturer must declare. | Incoming inspection, burn-in tests |
| IEC 62776 | Double-capped LED lamps intended to retrofit linear fluorescent, including the safety requirements around ballast bypass. | T8 fluorescent to LED |
| IEC 60598-1 | General requirements for luminaires — the safety basis, and the source of the ta and Tc marking conventions and the thermal test regime behind them. | The Tc point and driver life |
| IEC 62471 (CIE S 009) | Photobiological safety of lamps and lamp systems — hazard mechanisms, action spectra and the risk group definitions. | Risk groups on a lighting specification |
| IEC TR 62778 | Application of IEC 62471 to light sources and luminaires — the threshold-distance approach for the blue light hazard. | Risk groups |
ISO — International Organization for Standardization
Current editions from iso.org.
| Document | What it governs | Discussed in |
|---|---|---|
| ISO 2859-1 | Sampling procedures for inspection by attributes — defensible sample sizes and acceptance numbers by lot size. | Incoming inspection, colour consistency |
| ISO 9227 | Salt spray corrosion testing — relevant wherever coastal or industrial atmospheres are in scope. | Burn-in and ageing tests |
| ISO 12944 | Corrosion protection of steel structures by paint systems — the C1–C5 corrosivity categories used to specify outdoor finishes. | IP and IK ratings outdoors |
| ISO 20653 | The road-vehicle ingress variant, and the origin of the IP69K designation quoted for washdown applications. | IP and IK ratings outdoors |
| ISO/IEC 17025 | General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories — the basis of a laboratory's accreditation and of the scope document that says what it is accredited for. | Reading a photometric test report |
CEN and CENELEC — European standards
EN standards are obtained through the national member bodies rather than centrally; the catalogue and the list of members is at standards.cencenelec.eu. In the United Kingdom the same documents carry a BS EN prefix and come from BSI, in Germany a DIN EN prefix from DIN.
| Document | What it governs | Discussed in |
|---|---|---|
| EN 12464-1 | Lighting of indoor work places — task, surrounding and background area structure, maintained illuminance, uniformity and UGRL limits by application. Materially revised in 2021. | Maintained illuminance, UGR, high bay retrofit, illuminance shortfall |
| EN 1838 | Emergency lighting applications — the photometric requirements for escape route, open area and high-risk task lighting. | Emergency lighting basics |
| EN 50172 / BS 5266-1 | Emergency escape lighting systems — application, the testing regime and the records that must be kept. | Emergency lighting basics |
| DIN 5032-7 | Classification of illuminance meters, and with CIE 69 the source of the f1′ spectral mismatch index. | Illuminance shortfall after retrofit |
| EN 12464-2 | Lighting of outdoor work places — the task requirements for external areas, alongside the obtrusive light limits that constrain them. | Uniformity, obtrusive light |
| EN 13032 series | Measurement and presentation of photometric data for lamps and luminaires — the European counterpart to the LM-79 workflow. | Luminaire efficacy, reading a test report |
| EN 15193 | Energy performance of buildings, lighting — the LENI methodology, and the occupancy and daylight dependency factors used in energy assessments. | Lighting power density, controls retrofit |
IES — Illuminating Engineering Society
The approved measurement methods that photometric claims rest on. Published through ies.org and sold at the IES store.
| Document | What it governs | Discussed in |
|---|---|---|
| IES LM-63 | The standard file format for electronic transfer of photometric data — the structure and field definitions of an .ies file. | Reading an IES photometric file |
| IES LM-79 | Optical and electrical measurement of solid-state lighting products — absolute photometry of the finished luminaire. | Reading an IES file, incoming inspection, L70 and TM-21 |
| IES LM-80 | Measuring lumen and colour maintenance of LED packages, arrays and modules — packages on a test board, not luminaires. | L70, LM-80 and TM-21, colour consistency |
| IES TM-21 | Projecting long-term lumen maintenance from LM-80 data, including the limit beyond which a projection may not be reported. | L70, LM-80 and TM-21 |
| IES TM-30 | Evaluating light source colour rendition — the 99-sample method, Rf, Rg, hue-bin outputs and the colour vector graphic. | CRI (Ra) versus TM-30 |
CIE — International Commission on Illumination
The scientific basis under most photometric and colorimetric quantities. Publications and technical notes from cie.co.at; technical notes such as TN 006 are available without charge.
| Document | What it governs | Discussed in |
|---|---|---|
| CIE 13.3 | Method of measuring and specifying colour rendering — the definition of Ra and the R1–R15 test colour samples. | CRI (Ra) versus TM-30 |
| CIE 69 | Methods of characterising illuminance and luminance meters, including spectral mismatch. | Illuminance shortfall after retrofit |
| CIE 97 | Maintenance of indoor electric lighting systems — the four-term maintenance factor that turns an initial calculation into a maintained one. | Maintained illuminance, lumen method |
| CIE 117 | Discomfort glare in interior lighting — the origin of the UGR formula, the tabular method and its stated range of validity. | UGR: catalogue figure versus your room |
| CIE 190 | Calculation and presentation of UGR tables — the reference room conditions manufacturers' published tables assume. | UGR |
| CIE 224:2017 | The CIE 2017 colour fidelity index Rf, developed in parallel with TM-30. | CRI (Ra) versus TM-30 |
| CIE TN 006:2016 | Visual aspects of time-modulated lighting systems — the definition of the stroboscopic visibility measure, SVM. | Flicker: PstLM and SVM |
| CIE 15, Colorimetry | The definition of the chromaticity diagrams, the standard observers and correlated colour temperature. | CCT, Duv and the black-body locus |
| CIE 150 | Limitation of the effects of obtrusive light from outdoor lighting installations — the environmental zone framework and the quantities limited in each zone. | Obtrusive light and environmental zones |
| CIE S 026 | Metrology for ipRGC-influenced responses to light — the melanopic quantities, with a calculation toolbox published without charge. A separate subject from photobiological safety. | Risk groups, tunable white |
ANSI, ESTA and IEEE — United States
ANSI standards are sold through the ANSI webstore; the entertainment-lighting protocols are developed by the ESTA Technical Standards Program, and IEEE documents come from IEEE SA.
| Document | What it governs | Discussed in |
|---|---|---|
| ANSI C78.377 | Chromaticity specification for solid-state lighting — the nominal CCT quadrangle bins and the treatment of Duv. | Colour consistency and SDCM, CRI versus TM-30 |
| ANSI C136.2 | Roadway and area lighting equipment — the elevated surge withstand levels quoted for street lighting. | Surge protection |
| ANSI E1.11 (DMX512-A) | The entertainment lighting data protocol — topology, termination and why it does not belong on a building control network by default. | Dimming protocol selection |
| IEEE 1789-2015 | Recommended practices for modulating current in high-brightness LEDs — the frequency-versus-modulation-depth risk regions. | Flicker: PstLM and SVM |
Legislation and national standards
| Document | What it governs | Discussed in |
|---|---|---|
| Commission Regulation (EU) 2019/2020 | Ecodesign requirements for light sources — the source of the mandatory PstLM ≤ 1.0 and SVM ≤ 0.4 limits in the EU, and their application dates. Free full text on EUR-Lex. | Flicker: PstLM and SVM |
| GB 50034 建筑照明设计标准 | The governing illuminance and lighting power density standard for projects in mainland China. Catalogue at openstd.samr.gov.cn. | Maintained illuminance |
| BS 7671 | The UK wiring regulations, and the reference point for any modification to certified equipment such as a ballast bypass. Equivalent regulations apply elsewhere and take precedence over anything written here. | T8 fluorescent to LED |
Industry guidance and protocols
Not standards, but the practice documents that fill the gap between a standard and a project. CIBSE and the Society of Light and Lighting publish through the CIBSE Knowledge Portal.
| Document | What it governs | Discussed in |
|---|---|---|
| CIBSE/SLL Code for Lighting and the SLL Lighting Handbook | The lumen method, room index definition and utilisation factor tables. | Luminaire count by the lumen method |
| CIBSE Lighting Guide 1, The Industrial Environment | High bay layout, aisle lighting and the visual tasks of industrial space. | High bay HID to LED |
| CIBSE Guide M, Maintenance engineering and management | Group relamping intervals and maintenance cost planning — the inputs a payback case needs and usually omits. | Retrofit payback |
| IPMVP | International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol — for projects where the saving has to be evidenced after the fact rather than estimated in advance. | Retrofit payback |
| EULUMDAT (.ldt) | The European photometric file format. Different layout from LM-63, same principles, and the same sanity checks apply. | Reading an IES photometric file |
| ILP Guidance Notes for the Reduction of Obtrusive Light | The numeric limits and curfew conventions quoted by UK planning authorities, expressed against the CIE 150 environmental zones. | Obtrusive light |
| National energy codes — ASHRAE 90.1 and the IECC, Part L, or the national EPBD implementation | Lighting power density caps and the assessment methods behind them. Jurisdictional, revised frequently, and tightened repeatedly — always take the current edition. | Lighting power density and energy codes |
Original papers
Two pieces of primary literature sit underneath quantities this site uses daily, and both are worth reading once if you specify against them regularly.
- MacAdam, D. L. (1942), "Visual sensitivities to color differences in daylight", Journal of the Optical Society of America 32(5). The experiment that produced the ellipses every SDCM step is a multiple of — and a useful corrective to the assumption that a fixed distance in chromaticity space means a fixed visible difference. Discussed in colour consistency and SDCM.
- Ohno, Y. (2014), "Practical Use and Calculation of CCT and Duv", LEUKOS 10(1). The calculation method for correlated colour temperature and Duv that most spectroradiometer software implements, and the clearest published account of why the two quantities have to be reported together. Discussed in CCT, Duv and the black-body locus.
- Guth, S. K. (1963), "A method for the evaluation of discomfort glare", Illuminating Engineering 58. The origin of the position index p, the term in the UGR formula that accounts for where a luminaire sits relative to the line of sight. Discussed in UGR: catalogue figure versus your room.
Certification registers worth checking
Where a supplier claims conformity, several of these bodies maintain public registers you can check the claim against without asking anyone's permission. That is often faster than requesting a certificate, and it is harder to argue with.
- DALI Alliance — the register of DALI-2 and D4i certified control gear, devices and applications. A product described as "DALI compatible" that does not appear here is making a weaker claim than it sounds.
- Zhaga Consortium — interface specifications and certified products, relevant wherever a serviceable module or a standardised outdoor socket has been specified.
- DesignLights Consortium — the qualified products list used by most North American utility rebate programmes, with tested performance data attached to each listing.
- ENERGY STAR — certified product lists and the test procedures behind them.
- US DOE Solid-State Lighting programme — CALiPER test reports, technical briefs and Gateway demonstrations, all published without charge and unusually candid about what did not work.
If we have cited something wrongly
Clause numbers move between editions and we make mistakes like everyone else. If a reference on this site points at the wrong document, the wrong clause or a superseded edition, write to ruikunfu@gmail.com with the page and what it should say. Corrections that turn out to be right get made and the page's review date moves.