For businesses and municipalities around the world, the emergence of 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.

"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.