Benefits of LED Lighting

LED lighting has several advantages for businesses and commercial settings. This blog will review the main advantages of LEDs vs. traditional lighting types.

Energy Use

LEDs consume much lower amounts of energy than current incandescent, fluorescent and HID lighting. Many LEDs consume 70-80 percent less energy than the lights they are replacing. This leads to tremendous savings on your utility bills.

Longevity

LEDs typically last 40-50 percent longer than the lights they are replacing and many times they last longer than this. LEDs do not “die” or “burn out.” They lose lighting output over time. Since they are usually brighter and produce more output than the lights they are replacing, they tend to be effective past the manufacturer’s listed life.

The longevity of LEDs also results in eliminating replacement cost that were incurred with previous types of lighting, no more bulb and ballast replacement and equipment and installation costs.

Lower IR Heat Emission

It is often misunderstood that LEDs do not produce heat. Lights emit three things: light, IR and heat. Incandescent and fluorescent lighting emit elevated levels of infrared radiation (IR), but LEDs emit none. Incandescent lights emit 95 percent of the energy being used as IR and heat (85 percent IR and 10 percent heat) and fluorescents emit 90 percent (80 percent IR and 10 percent heat). LEDs are around 0 percent for IR.

The heat can be dissipated much more easily than the IR resulting in a much cooler temperature in the surrounding area. This leads to a reduced load on your HVAC system during cooling months. The savings can be substantial depending on the size of your facility being cooled and the amount of cooling months in your specific location (Miami vs Minnesota).

Directional

LEDs emit light in a direction not 360 percent like other “gas” based sources. This makes it easier for applications where the light is needed for directional purposes such as downlighting, up lighting, “showcasing” areas, etc. This eliminates the need for reflective and specialty fixtures used in other lighting types.

Color Rendering Index (CRI)

LEDs have a much better CRI rating than do most incandescent light replacements. This is a measure of how true a color appears compared to a natural light source (the sun or daylight). Incandescent worked very well for CRI but have been slowly phased out as new energy regulations out of DC have made it more economical to manufacture fluorescents and LEDs instead of incandescent.

LEDs typically have a rendering between 70-80 percent with a high CRI of 90 percent. These can be further modified to highlight a certain color of light such as a red or a blue to enhance that color wavelength.