The Lighting Council of Australia (LCA) has highlighted additional high-cost registration rules for LED light bulbs under proposed Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) regulations will carry unintended consequences including reduced energy savings, higher consumer costs and reduced choice.

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) is pushing ahead with high-cost registration rules for LEDs despite recommendations 10, 16 and 17 of the Greenhouse and Energy Minimum (GEMS) Act review specifically highlighting the GEMS Regulator should ease the regulatory burden on the LED industry.

The GEMS Act allows the regulator the freedom to stipulate registration requirements. Streamlined rules are possible.

It is important to note these complex registration rules will not improve the efficiency of LEDs but will have the opposite effect by stalling the current voluntary innovation trajectory.

Lighting Council Australia highlighted this issue during the GEMS Act review in 2019, during public consultations in March 2023, directly to Senator the Hon Jenny McAllister, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy on 12 April 2023 and subsequently put forward a streamlined registration proposal to DCCEEW officials.

The LED market is unique amongst GEMS-regulated products due to the very high number of LED models on the market and the high rate of product upgrading. Complex rules will require large numbers of registrations, high administration costs and the unintended consequences mentioned above.

“DCCEEW is in the final stages of preparing a Ministerial Determination to regulate LED light bulbs under the GEMS Act. We understand that DCCEEW will present these new regulations to energy ministers early in 2024,” The LCA writes in a statement.