All Pros, No Cons For Retrofit LED Lights

By 2020, 50% of all lighting in the commercial, industrial and outdoor sectors will use an LED light source. The LED sector is growing, but the technology is still not well understood. What are the facts and why should the logistics industry be making the switch to LED?

The best-known advantages of LED are lower running costs and reduced maintenance. But LED suppliers are now also quoting better performance, as well as reduced carbon emissions and easier compliance with legislation. Add these together and the future of lighting would seem to be clear.

Saving Money

Replacing traditional light sources with LED gives, on average, a 75% energy saving. LEDs use an in-built driver to regulate the voltage, in contrast to regular lamps, which have control gear, consuming a further 15-25% energy and contributing to higher maintenance costs. The cost of maintenance can be significant with traditional lighting: with the number of components, a lamp failure could be caused by several different issues. Replacing a starter or ballast costs 15-20 times more than the lamp itself and then there’s the associated labour cost. Failures in LED lights tend to be the driver itself and, with a five year warranty against most products, such a failure is usually covered.

Reducing Carbon

LED products are more eco-friendly than traditional lighting: they’re recyclable, contain no mercury gas or UV and components can be re-used.

Lighting typically accounts for around 25% of a building’s energy consumption. The average lifespan of an LED light is 50,000 hours, compared to roughly 10,000 for traditional light sources. LEDs also produce very little heat in operation compared to traditional lighting and so reduce the burden on cooling systems.

The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme demands that organisations make savings and reduce their energy consumption. Some companies have opted for voltage power optimising, some for solar panels, others for HVAC solutions and some for LED re-lamping – the winners will be those who improve their buildings by adopting all these technologies and using them in tandem to maximise efficiency.

Better Performance

Lack of knowledge and the relative newness of the technology has led to a misconception that LEDs are not bright enough: in fact, ther are many high-performance LED products available. LEDs work differently to traditional light sources, which ‘throw’ the light in a 360° beam around the source, often providing light where it is not needed. LEDs provide a ‘directional’ type of light, giving a better concentration. They also turn instantly on and off, unlike industrial lamps that can take ten minutes to warm up – particularly in a cavernous and cold warehouse. This makes them an ideal partner with presence or motion detection sensors, so that lighting can be switched on and off depending on occupancy in the area, thus making them even more energy efficient.

Fluorescent lighting will lose up to 45% of its lumen output over its lifetime, whilst LEDs only depreciate 3-5% over the first 1,000 hours and 3% over the next 5,000 hours. Neither do LEDs hum or flicker like traditional fluorescents.

Choose Carefully and Investigate Funding 

LED prices are very indicative of quality and anyone investing in a switch to LEDS needs to be confident of the quality and performance. Adopting a new technology also requires considerable technical support and many LED projects involve in-depth product testing prior to installation.

Choose a supplier carefully – while products may look similar, its the electronics and components used inside which separate a good product from bad. A trustworthy supplier will always want to help the customer to make an informed choice and find the right solution.

Capital expenditure will inevitably be required, but many projects are funded by interest-free loans and for large re-lamping projects (typically in excess of £2million), there are other funding solutions. If you can cut running costs by 70%, with a two year payback and get a five to six year lifespan from your lighting with no ongoing maintenance, there’s a good incentive to investigate the funding options.

The LED sector is going from strength to strength, and with more strides being made in the capability of the technology, LED performance can only improve further over time. The barriers to switching are few and the benefits many and varied – it’s time to see the light.