Mar 25 2010
For businesses and municipalities around the world, the emergence of light-emitting diode (LED) lighting systems that can cut lighting energy costs as much as 80 percent and drastically reduce lighting maintenance costs has generated a desperate need for standardization of product performance claims.
GE Lighting Solutions is addressing the issues of LED quality and reliability by pushing for a universal set of LED performance standards. Much of its work with NEMA, the Department of Energy/ENERGY STAR, ANSI, Intertek and IESNA centers on the development of measurement, efficiency and performance guidelines that clarify LED standards.
“The LED industry is at a crucial point,” says Steven J. Briggs, vice president of marketing and product management for GE Lighting Solutions. “We have customers wanting to invest millions of dollars in a new lighting technology that’s supposed to last as long as a decade. LED solution leaders such as GE need to press for standards that protect customers.”
To help customers navigate the brave new world of LED lighting, GE Lighting Solutions has developed and published a list of 10 questions that purchase decision-makers should ask before committing to buy products and services from any LED lighting systems provider. The full list and rationale for each question is viewable at www.gelighting.com/apples-to-oranges. Some of the questions to ask include:
- Is your company registered as a Department of Energy (DOE) Quality Advocate? And, have you taken the Quality Pledge for Solid State Lighting (SSL) Products?
- Whose LEDs do you use in your products? Have your products gone through an Intellectual Property (IP) clearance?
- What is the LED manufacturer's LED performance rating and what is the rating of your LED system or final product?
- What precautions do you take to ensure that the LED selected for your product will meet the performance requirements for which it's rated? Can you share your data showing the LED selection/testing process?
- Does your product use LEDs that have been LM80 tested to demonstrate L70 life after 6000 hours of test? If yes, can you share your LM80 data and life model that was used to demonstrate the L70 life?
“Given the scale of the LED projects we’re seeing, we know what’s on the line with every LED purchase decision,” adds Briggs. “You’ve got to get it right. There’s simply not a whole lot of gray area.”
GE Lighting Solutions, a proven expert in the LED category, has an expansive installed base of more than 25 million linear feet of LED lighting with a warranty return rate of less than .05 percent.
GE offers an extensive line of high-performance LED product solutions, including lamps, architectural lighting, retail display, signage, outdoor lighting and transportation solutions. GE Lighting Solutions earned more awards than any other company in this year’s Next Generation Luminaires™ Competition, including a Best-in-Class award for the GE Evolve™ R150 LED Cobrahead Luminaire, a new LED street and roadway light.
GE Lighting Solutions consists of GE Lighting’s light-emitting diode systems operation based in Cleveland and its commercial and industrial lighting fixture group in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The units were combined earlier this year to support a strategy to serve as an industry-leading solutions provider for the rapidly growing indoor and outdoor fixture segments that use LED systems and other energy-efficient lighting technologies.