The EU smart lighting "mandatory threshold" will be implemented in May! China’s Lighting Export Sales Test to Welcome the New Year

The revised EU "Energy Performance Building Directive" (EPBD) will be revised and published in May 2024. According to regulations, all EU member states must convert the content of the directive into national laws before May 29, 2026 - which means that starting from May 2026, the revised EPBD will officially enter the full implementation stage.

For Chinese lighting export companies, this is the first and most urgent compliance test they face this year. The mandatory requirements brought by EPBD directly overturned the traditional logic of "a single lamp can enter the market if it meets the standard".

The core requirements of the new regulations are very clear:

All new commercial buildings in the EU must be mandated to install automatic lighting control systems and building automation systems. This clause directly changes smart lighting from a value-added option in the past to a rigid standard for new commercial projects. Specifically:

1. The product is no longer an isolated lighting item. It must have core attributes that can be networked and integrated, and can be seamlessly connected to the overall intelligent management system of the building to achieve dynamic dimming, energy consumption monitoring and intelligent management and control based on human activities and natural lighting;

2. The technical level must complete standardized adaptation, focusing on docking with the European Union's "Smart Readiness Index" (SRI) and global communication protocols such as Matter, to ensure the interconnection and interoperability of the product;

3. The driver must meet the mandatory requirements of D4i Gen 2, not only must have basic DALI dimming function, but also must comply with DALI Part 250–253 standard energy consumption measurement and fault diagnosis capabilities, and the driver needs to be installed independently, use pluggable terminal blocks, and cannot share the heat dissipation path with the LED module.

For a large number of domestic companies that still mainly produce traditional lighting products or simple smart products, this means that if they cannot complete the intelligent upgrade and system integration adaptation of their products, even if the light efficiency and energy efficiency indicators are all up to standard, they will not be able to enter the core market of new commercial buildings in the EU, and directly face the risk of being excluded from the mainstream procurement list.

If EPBD delineates the red line for smart access, then the Ecological Sustainable Product Design Regulations (ESPR), which will officially take effect on July 18, 2024, has reshaped the underlying logic of product compliance from the top-level design. ESPR expands the control boundary from energy-related products to almost all physical commodities, and the evaluation criteria are upgraded from a single energy efficiency parameter to the environmental impact and sustainability performance of the product's entire life cycle.

The "dual regulations" system composed of EPBD and ESPR have jointly pushed China's lighting export enterprises to a key node in all-round capability upgrading.

Customs data in the first quarter of 2026 shows that my country's lighting product exports totaled approximately US$11.4 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 3.5%. Among them, exports to the United States declined significantly, while exports to the EU market bucked the trend and increased by 8%. A survey of the Hong Kong Spring Lighting Fair, which just concluded on April 23, also showed that nearly half of the respondents expected sales to increase in the next two years, and consumers were willing to pay a nearly 30% premium for smart lighting. It can be seen that the European market is not shrinking, but the threshold is rising. Those companies that take the lead in completing intelligent, standardized, and green upgrades are expected to gain greater market share in the new round of reshuffle.