The benefits of indoor LED lighting may never be realized if your system doesn't perform as expected. It is imperative to conduct a thorough review of potential systems before making a final selection, advise experts from Lithonia Lighting.
To ensure your LED system achieves maximum performance, use the following guidelines:
- Standard criteria: Use basic lighting principles to confirm a new LED lighting solution will provide enhanced lighting quality, efficiency, and aesthetics over your current system.
- Thermal management: Determine how heat is managed in the overall system, which affects the efficacy of the luminaire source, system life expectancy, and the color quality and consistency.
- Color quality: Use the color rendering index (CRI) to determine color quality. An indoor LED fixture for ambient lighting should have a minimum CRI of 80. Ask the luminaire manufacturer how color consistency is managed using binning (sorting), color mixing, or controls.
- Lumen output: Determine the LED system's delivered lumens and efficacy or lumens per watt (LPW) with the manufacturer's published data to ascertain if an LED solution can meet your needs effectively.
- Adaptability: Research the adaptability of the LED lighting system. It should be easy to replace or upgrade components, as well as reconfigure the system for updates.
- Digital lighting controls: LED luminaires should be "control-friendly." They should be fully compatible with occupancy sensors, daylight harvesting controls, manual dimming, and full-scale energy management systems. Without compatibility testing, the electronic components could be out of sync and result in diminished dimming capability.
