Industry regulation has been comprehensively upgraded, and new safety and energy efficiency standards for outdoor LED lighting have been implemented, forcing the survival of the fittest in the industry

In order to standardize the order of the outdoor lighting market, strictly control the quality of urban lighting projects, and implement energy-saving, environmental protection, and safety protection requirements, multiple new standards and regulations for the outdoor LED lighting industry in China will be fully implemented in 2026. For all categories of outdoor lighting fixtures such as LED bridge lights, wall washers, outdoor linear lights, floodlights, buried lights, underwater lights, and courtyard lights, mandatory thresholds will be set in terms of safety protection, energy efficiency indicators, light environment quality, and service life. The chaos of low price and poor quality, non-standard production, and performance false standards in the industry will be thoroughly rectified, accelerating the standardization and high-quality development process of the outdoor LED lighting industry.
This new regulation covers all categories and application scenarios of outdoor lighting, targeting the long-standing pain points in the industry. In terms of safety protection, the new standard has refined the protection level standards for lighting fixtures in different scenarios, clarifying that underwater lighting fixtures specifically designed for water features must achieve an IP68 protection level and be able to withstand long-term immersion in underwater operations; Underground lights and step lights need to undergo dual testing for pressure resistance, waterproofing, and leakage prevention, and are suitable for embedded installation scenarios on pedestrian and vehicle floors; Bridge lights, wall wash lights, and linear lights used in bridges and high-rise buildings have added safety testing standards for wind and earthquake resistance, as well as fall prevention, to eliminate safety hazards caused by the detachment of high-altitude lighting fixtures; Outdoor wall lights, column lights, window lights, and other exterior wall mounted lighting fixtures must strictly adhere to insulation protection and waterproof wiring processes to prevent safety accidents such as electric leakage, short circuits, and fires during rainy days.
The energy efficiency and light environment control measures have been significantly upgraded to eliminate ineffective lighting and light pollution. The new regulations have unified the minimum threshold for the luminous efficiency of all categories of outdoor LED lamps, eliminated low efficiency products with luminous efficiency below 150lm/W, and mandated the use of high-efficiency lamps in municipal, cultural and tourism, and real estate projects, further improving the energy-saving rate of urban lighting. At the same time, strictly regulate the color temperature, glare value, and overflow light indicators of lighting fixtures, clarify urban residential areas, wetland parks, and ecological green spaces, prohibit the use of high brightness, high blue light, and strong overflow lighting fixtures, and require lawn lights, tree lights, and courtyard lights to adopt cutoff and anti glare design; The wall washing lamps, point light sources, and linear lamps used for building lighting need to control their projection angles to avoid light entering residential interiors, and to implement the new industry concept of "low-carbon lighting and ecological lighting".
Product durability and standardized operation and maintenance are implemented simultaneously. The new standard specifies the quality assurance parameters for all engineering grade outdoor LED lighting fixtures, requiring high-power floodlights, wall washers, and bridge lights to have a service life of no less than 50000 hours, and small landscape lighting fixtures, courtyard lights, and step lights to have a service life of no less than 30000 hours. It is strictly prohibited to falsely label parameters or pass off inferior products as good. At the same time, we will promote modular and standardized design of lighting fixtures, unify the specifications of drivers, light sources, and interfaces, solve the problems of difficult maintenance, difficult matching of accessories, and high overall scrap rate of non-standard lighting fixtures in the past, effectively reduce the post operation and maintenance costs of urban lighting, reduce the generation of electronic waste, and meet the requirements of green circular economy development.
The implementation of new regulations has completely reshaped the competitive landscape of the industry. Small and medium-sized workshops that relied on low price competition, cutting corners, and non-standard production in the past have gradually withdrawn from the market. The advantages of industry entities with independent research and development, compliant production, and quality control capabilities continue to be highlighted. Industry experts say that standardization and normalization are inevitable trends for high-quality development. In the future, the outdoor LED lighting industry will completely bid farewell to the wild growth stage, and high-quality products and solutions with safety, energy conservation, ecology, and intelligence as the core will become the only mainstream in the market, promoting the transformation and upgrading of the entire industry.