|
Despite
Hardware Restorations popularity, industrial lighting is not
just a question of looks and aesthetics. Various industries
have extensive lighting needs and the LED light is ideally
suited for these needs perhaps above other lighting needs.
Industrial lighting runs long hours (driving up electric use
and cost) and requires very bright lighting to properly
light the workspace. This lighting also tends to be high
above which conveys many advantages to LED lights. Let's
take a look at the benefits of LED lights for industrial
uses.
First,
we'll start with the cost to power a given industrial space
with lighting. Industrial lighting is different from most
office lighting in that fluorescents are not as heavily
relied upon since they do not generate enough bright light.
It's not uncommon to have very high powered incandescent
lights in an industrial space. The wattage for these lights
can be 500 to 1000 watts per light and they're typically
place high above the workspace depending on the industry.
This is a perfect set-up for LED lights. The best value
proposition for LED lighting is against these high powered,
high wattage incandescent lights (whether halogen, sodium
halide, etc). We can usually take a 1000 watt light down to
about 120 watts. Think about the cost difference even at 10
cents per KWH in an industrial space where lights are
probably running a minimum of 10 hours (sometimes 24/7) if
we're dropping the wattage down from 1000 to 120. That
alone is a reason for any industrial space to switch over.
This is
only the beginning of the savings with LED industrial
lighting. The lifespan of our LED lights typically run
50,000 hours compared to 2000-5000 hours for most common
industrial lighting (incandescent or fluorescent). That
means less labor to switch these out and the reduced bulb
replacement costs offsets the higher cost of LED bulbs up
front. Industrial spaces tend be more complicated in terms
of accessing lighting fixtures for replacement as well.
Industrial LED lighting even works against fluorescent
lighting but the savings are not as significant. Where an
LED light might reduce the cost (over 5 year window) by 90%+
versus incandescents, the savings might be closer to 30-50%
versus fluorescents. Of course, the best approach is to
request your LED light quote for specific savings that you
can expect. There's one more important wrinkle that many
industrial site managers are planning for now. The T12
fluorescent, the most common fluorescent bulb that's
ubiquitous in industrial lighting set-ups is being phased
out Jan 1st, 2012 with the ballast already unavailable. The
good news is that we do not need to replace or remove the
existing fixture and/or ballast to retro-fit with LED
industrial lights. We just bypass the ballast and keep the
existing structure to minimize cost, down-time, and
inconvenience.
Let's
get to the best part of installing LED industrial lighting.
The government rebates. Industry drives the U.S. economy as
we would expect, the greatest rebates for LED retro-fitting
goes to LED industrial lighting installations. We can help
you with this but it's not uncommon to have rebates per LED
bulb, per wattage saved, and even per square foot. If you
add it up, the initial higher cost of the actual LED bulb
can be mitigated leaving you the ongoing savings associated
with energy, replacement, and labor savings. Let us run a
quote for your situation and we'll show you specifically how
LED industrial lighting can save you money. Now is the
opportune time since your existing bulbs are most likely
being phased out anyway and the next replacement will make
LED's the best option if not the only option.
|
