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On a
straight comparison, LED lights come out ahead financially
over incandescent and fluorescent lights over a 5 year
window every time. This is partially a function of reduced
energy costs and partially due to longevity of the actual
hardware. The key phrase though is "straight comparison"
because there's a missing piece in the equation that we're
not even taking into account. This is the light cycling
which can affect both parts of the equation significantly
depending on what type of space you're lighting. Let's look
at light cycling and how it affects the three different
lights.
So what
is light cycling? Put simply, it's the process of turning
lights on and off. You probably don't think much about that
unless your in the lighting business or in charge of
building maintenance. It's important though and the effect
hits your bottom line financially. For both incandescent
and fluorescent lights, the process of turning power off and
on has a negative effect on the very hardware which makes
sense if you think about it. For an incandescent light
which essentially operates by heating up a substrate or
filament to very high temperatures in order to produce a
glow as a result of resistance to a current, you can see how
turning on would be stressful to the system. Simply going
from a room temperature to the very high heat (almost
instantly) is enough to cause incremental damage to the
filament each time you do it. The accumulation of this
damage will lead to the eventual failure of the incandescent
bulb. No amount of engineering or chemical prowess can
completely eliminate the wear and tear that incandescent
bulbs experience as a result of cycling. As short lived as
incandescents lights are due to light cycling, fluorescents
are even more impacted.
Fluorescent lights really don't like light cycling. We
won't get into the mechanics of what's going on but the
chemical process by which the fixture makes light degrades
every time the light is switch on/off or cycled. The
chemical conduit through which the light is created actually
degrades with each cycle. This is the light itself but
there's an added issue of the ballast itself. The ballast
is the housing which controls the electric current passed
through to the actual fluorescent bulb. The ballast is an
electronic component which can also fail and will be
negatively impacted by each on/off cycle. As fluorescent
lights are cycled on/off, they will start to display the
bluish color towards the end and will diminish in color
quality and light quantity.
What
about LED lights and cycling. No issue. Indeed, LED lights
will eventually fail but the lifespan can be 50000 hours
instead of 1500 for incandescent or 3500 for fluorescent and
the on/off cycling does not impact the expected lifespan.
This is very important to consider when comparing the
various lighting options since they show expected lifespan
based on a set expected usage which is generally very
conservative and negates the effects of light cycling. LED
lights do not need to reflect the effect of light cycling
since it's so negligible. Just one more consideration when
looking at the various options and more importantly, the
inevitable advantages of LED lights over incandescent and
fluorescent. |
