4 Essential Websites for Staying Up-to-Date on IEC and EN Standards and CB and ENEC Certifications
As a manufacturer or importer, it is important to stay up to date with the latest standards. Also, it is useful for both manufacturers and importers to understand the fundamentals of the most important certification schemes.
When talking about standardization and certification systems, we unfortunately have to use several different abbreviations. For example, international standards are created and maintained by IEC, and ETICS is responsible for maintaining the European ENEC certification.
In this blog post, we'll highlight four important websites lighting product manufacturers and importers can use to keep up-to-date with IEC and EN standards and to learn about CB and ENEC certifications. We also introduce the terms related to organizations, standards, and certification schemes.
1: IEC – International Electrotechnical Commission
The IEC is a global organization that develops and publishes international standards for various industries, including the lighting industry. IEC standards serve as the basis for European and national standardization work.
The website offers a vast amount of information on IEC standards, including the latest editions and updates, as well as technical information, guidelines, and training resources. For luminaire manufacturers and importers, the IEC website is an excellent resource to help ensure that products meet the required standards and regulations.
The website also features the IEC webstore, where you may buy all IEC standards and other publications. In addition, the webstore allows you to search for and become familiar with different standards and standard versions.
From the product card of the standards you can see:
basic information about the standard
the version history of the standard and the current state of new releases
other publications related to the standard (for example, other parts of the standard series).
The product card also allows you to preview the standard. For instance, the IEC 60598-1:2020 luminaire standard preview displays the first 16 pages of the standard. These pages contain the standard's scope, normative references, and the table of contents.
What should you use the website for
to search for IEC standards
for checking IEC standard versions
to familiarize yourself with IEC publications
for purchasing IEC publications
2. CENELEC – European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization
CENELEC prepares voluntary standards in the electrotechnical sector, which help facilitate trade between countries, create new markets, reduce compliance costs, and support the development of a Single European Market.
Most of the European standards in the electrotechnical field (EN standards or newer EN/IEC standards) are based on international IEC standards. The European lighting product category standards are mainly equivalent to the international IEC standards. However, some standards have a few European differences, for example, the luminaire standard.
The website provides information on CENELEC's activities and European standards. The most important section of the site is the standard search found at the top of the front page.
Here, you can look up and research European standards. Use the "Standard Reference" search area to do a standard search; leave the "Keywords" search field blank. Enter the standard's number—for instance, 60598-1—without a prefix in the search area. The search produces a list from which the desired standard can be chosen.
The standard card contains information about the standard version. You should pay attention to the following points on the card.
Project / Reference Document: Informs about the IEC standard that corresponds to the EN standard.
Project / Status: Tells the status of the standard version, i.e. whether it is valid or not.
Legal / Directive(s): Tells the directives under which the standard is harmonized. (The information on the page may not be up-to-date when it comes to a new publication. Up-to-date information can be found in the official journal of the European Union, EUR-Lex.)
Implementation Dates: Indicates the dates that apply to the standard version. Of these, the date of Publication (DOP) and date of withdrawal (DOW) are worth noting. DOP is the official release date of the standard version. DOW announces the latest date after which the standard version will be withdrawn, and when manufacturers must switch to the new standard version. Dates in italics are estimated dates.
What should you use the website for
to search for EN standards
to ensure an IEC standard corresponding to the EN standard
to ensure the validity of EN standards
3. IECEE – IEC System of Conformity Assessment Schemes for Electrotechnical Equipment and Components
IECEE is a multinational, worldwide certification system based on IEC international standards. The CB (Certification Body) system operated by IECEE is an international system for the mutual acceptance of test reports and certificates concerning the safety of electrical and electronic components, devices and products.
The website provides extensive information about the IECEE CB scheme, as well as a list of the CB system's national certification bodies, known as NCBs (National Certification Bodies), and the CB laboratories that operate under them. The website also includes a link to the IEC webstore, which was previously described.
We want to highlight three important sections of the website. The first of these is National certification bodies. On this page, you can see a list of the national certification bodies that are part of the system. The list provides access to additional information on the certification bodies. In addition to the basic information of the certification body, you can see the laboratories operating under it and the standards in its area of competence.
The second section is Rules, operational documents & guides. Various instructions and guides can be found in the list compiled here. Of course, the majority of these apply to the work of certification bodies and laboratories, but certain tips may be valuable to manufacturers as well. For example, the document OD-G-2060 (Guidelines on Component Interchangeability) gives instructions on the interchangeability of components.
The third section is CTL decisions. We will make a separate blog post about CTL / OSM decisions later, but for now, these are the standard interpretations. The list can be used to look for decisions based on criteria such as a standard. If you simply want to familiarize yourself with these, we propose filtering the results by product category. LITE is the product category code for lighting products.
What should you use the website for
for retrieving information from the CB system
for searching and comparing certification bodies
to search for CTL decisions
4. ETICS – European Testing, Inspection and Certification System
ETICS is a European testing, inspection, and certification system. The purpose of ETICS is to administer the ENEC system as well as other systems such as CCA, HAR, and LOVAG, which assess the conformity of third-party products mainly in the electrotechnical field.
The site contains a lot of information about the operation of ETICS and the certification systems they manage.
You may start by visiting the Document server section of the website. Here you can find a variety of manuals and instructions concerning ENEC certification and the conformity of lighting products.
The ENEC Public Documents section opens a list of documents with a lot of general information about ENEC certification.
ENEC PD 303 Annexes contain very important documents for manufacturers whose products have ENEC certifications. The documents contain product-specific requirements and instructions on routine and periodic testing included in ENEC certification. Setting the category to LITE will allow you to filter documents that deal with lighting products. We'll return to ENEC certification in later blog articles, but for now, know that ENEC is a type 5 certification, which includes monitoring the use of the certification mark.
A little lower on the list is the OSM-LUM Decision Sheets section. These are practically the same standard interpretations as the CTL decisions, except they apply to EN standards. The challenge with decisions is that there are so many of them and it can be difficult to find a decision that fits the situation.
As the last section of the site, we will raise the section Certification bodies. Here you can find information about the certification bodies in the ETICS system, i.e. the certification bodies that can issue ENEC certificates, for example. In addition to basic information, you can learn more about the certification bodies, such as the scope of the standards and the laboratories affiliated with the certification body.
It should be noted that the website also contains a database of certified products. However, according to our experience, using the database is somewhat challenging due to its search functions. Because you won't usually find what you're looking for in the database, it's best to check elsewhere for certificate information.
What should you use the website for
to search for information about ENEC certification
to search for OSM decisions
for searching and comparing certification bodies
Bonus site – IEC Electropedia
Electropedia contains all the terms and definitions in the International Electrotechnical Vocabulary. Electropedia is the world's most comprehensive online terminology database on electrotechnology containing more than 22 000 terminological entries. The database contains translations of terms into several different languages.
The terms are organized by subject area. The subject area for lighting-related terms is 845 (Lighting).
Summary
As a manufacturer or importer, it is important to stay up to date on the current standards and know the basics of the most relevant certifications. The IEC and CENELEC websites are useful sources for getting information about IEC and EN standards. On the IECEE and ETICS websites, you may find a lot of useful information about CB and ENEC certifications, as well as numerous guidelines and standard interpretations. The IEC and CENELEC standard directories, in especially, should be followed on a regular basis.
Follow the LITE blog for future blog postings on CTL/OSM decisions and other certifications.
IEC - International Electrotechnical Commission (www.iec.ch)
CENELEC - European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (www.cencenelec.eu)
ETICS - European Electrical Products Certification Association (www.etics.org)