Lighting requirements for high-rise dwellings in the energy standard published by ASHRAE and the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) is open for industry comment until April 24, 2016.

As it stands, lighting in dwelling units in high-rise buildings is exempt in both Standard 90.1 and ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.2, Energy Standard for Low-Rise Residential Buildings, mainly because lighting in a home is not considered commercial.

“These new requirements would set efficacy minimums and/or controls for the lighting in dwelling unit spaces covered in the standard’s scope, which includes multi-family structures of four stories or above,” said Eric Richman, chair of the standard’s lighting subcommittee.

The proposed conditions are similar to those in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR program for high efficacy lighting, They are simplified to support compliance as well as being conservative to allow design flexibility.

Efficacy requirements will effectively eliminate the use of incandescent and halogen sources as well as less efficacious products in the CFL and LED categories.