What's the Best Area Lighting Technology?

Area lighting, most commonly used in parking lots for facilities and buildings, are a necessity to the lots safety, security, and even curb appeal. Finding a lighting technology that suits all of these needs and fulfills them is crucial to keeping visitors, staff, and property safe.

So… What exactly is the best area lighting that we can install or replace with our existing parking lot lights? We are going to compare LED vs metal halide technology, and show how LED is the clear winner when it comes to parking lights.

From energy efficiency to higher light quality, we are going to cover all the important aspects of LED and why exactly they are far superior to metal halide and other similar lighting technologies that are clearly outdated and no longer a “good” lighting choice for really any application.

Let’s start off with the first point on this list that is most often the most important point that makes people want to convert to LED from metal halide, HPS, and other luminaires.

Energy reduction through energy efficiency. Since LED technology outputs at more lumens per watt, this means LED can produce the same amount of light as a comparable metal halide fixture can measured in lumens, all with less watts. This is the single most important factor when measuring how efficient a lighting product is comparative to another. Whenever a fixture outputs at more lumens per watt, it is more efficient. And since LED technology is so efficient, it can actually reduce energy costs associated with your lighting system by 50% all the way up to 75% depending on which technology and products you convert away from.

With all of this efficiency that LED products will bring to your lighting system, you will be able to produce an ROI that is positive and pays back itself.

No flickering or buzzing. This annoyance that metal halide lights are susceptible can cause two issues: increased annoyance from visitors and employees and decreased security.

To address the first point, if you’ve ever been around a light that flickers or buzzes you know it can start to be frustrating, annoying, and even distracting after just a few minutes. This can reduce curb appeal and put people off in even the slightest way, which is never good for any business.

In regards to the security aspects, when a light flickers it is hard to detect human movement; especially when someone doesn’t want to be seen. This allows for greater risk of crime and a lessened ability to identify people when the area lights flicker.

A solution to this can be found through a replacement of metal halide with LED luminaires. How exactly? Simple, LED technology was just made in a way that it will never flicker or buzz, not even near the end of their lifespan; to say in simplest terms.

Rebates increase ROI. Imagine if next time you bought lighting to replace your shoe box lights (area lights), you could decrease your costs by achieving rebates? Well, with LED products that is completely possible as long as you buy the right products.

To be eligible for rebates through your utility company, you need to buy your commercial LED area lights that are DesignLights Consortium qualified. The DLC is an organization that qualifies commercial lights based on efficiency and quality, and only these types of lighting fixtures are eligible for rebates. So when you are on the lookout for new area lights for your lot, be sure to buy DLC qualified products!

Click here to visit the official DLC website to learn more.

Dimming capabilities. Sometimes we don’t want our parking lot lights to output at full capacity, for whatever reason that may be. With metal halide it can be both inefficient to do so, and in worse cases it can reduce the lifespan of the light source. LEDs are easily dimmable, are more efficient when you do dim them (they consume less energy because they output less light), and dimming an LED just doesn’t reduce its lifespan whatsoever. So if you have a need to install dimmer for your area lights, you can see many more benefits of doing it with LED luminaires installed over metal halide.

Conclusion

Convinced yet on the benefits of LED area lights over metal halide and really any other lighting technology? Hopefully, because these benefits of LED far surpass the non-existent benefits that metal halide bring to your lot.

To recap, making the switch and converting to LED from metal halide in your parking lot will allow you to realize lower energy costs associated with your area lights, no more buzzing or flickering which decrease both focus, curb appeal and security, eligibility for rebates more often than not, and dimming capabilities that prove to be effective.

Consider making the switch to LED from metal halide (or any other technology you may have in place currently) and gain all of these benefits and more by converting.

source http://my-led-lighting-guide.tumblr.com/post/152295033588

Improve Your Parking Lot Safety With LED Area Lighting

Whether your facility, building, or lot is for public access or just employees; security and safety is paramount to all of those who have access to the parking lot. For this sole reason, along with just being and looking professional to the public eye, a proper lighting system is a must for your lot.

By having an under lit and overall low quality lot full of bad area lights, you increase the chance for crime in your lot to both people and property. This post is all about how we can greatly deter and thus reduce or eliminate any type of mischievous activity from entering the property’s parking lot. On top of the added benefit that quality parking lot LED fixtures will bring in regards to safety, we will also discuss cost saving benefits that will make the reasoning behind the upgrade even more feasible. This will allow for greater approval if you are simply just a property or facility manager. If you are a building owner on the other hand, it will just that much more improve the likelihood of you looking into this highly viable option and possibly even making the switch as soon as possible. Because not only with LED technology in your lot improve safety, but it will also improve your bottom line believe it or not!

What is “Parking Lot Lighting?”

Before we can explain why LED is superior to other outdated lighting technologies commonly used in the parking lot (like high pressure sodium and metal halide), we need to define what parking lot lighting consists of.

Typically we refer to it as “area lighting” for the more “official” term. On top of that, these area lights typically sit in a shoebox fixture, which is what you typically find in parking lots.

Now we list multiple ways that area lighting LEDs will improve safety, reduce costs, and create a better appeal to your business from a customer point of view.

No more underlit areas. By switching to LED from these other outdated technologies, you opt-out for the high lumen depreciation that metal halide and similar technologies are susceptible to. With lumen depreciation, you lights slowly becoming dimmer and dimmer overtime by the loss of lumen output they supply. All lighting technologies do this, but with LED it is at a much slower rate and overall much less than other lighting products. And with a proper lighting system design, this can be avoided entirely with LED.

No flickering or buzzing. Not only are flickering and buzzing lights annoying in any situation, in a security aspect they take away security efforts. How so? Well, flickering lights take away from the ability to detect movement, which allows for harder to notice unwanted presence and easy to escape and evade security persons. By having steady light, you take away from this vulnerability that flickering lights bring. Since LED technology is any application will never face this issue (even nearing the end of its life), you take away this issue entirely.

Higher Color Rendering Index ratings. The Color Rendering Index (or CRI) is a scale of 0 to 100 that defines the ability to output at different color renderings. With LED being able to be higher up on the scale, this proves for LED fixtures to output better and higher quality light.

More lumens per watt = energy saving benefits. When it comes to efficiency, the more lumens per watt a given luminaire outputs is how you define whether that fixture is efficient or not. So a metal halide that outputs at 50 lumens per watt is highly inefficient to an LED that outputs at 150 lumens / watt. Remember this: never buy your shoebox parking lot lights off of watts, but rather lumens per watt. And always go with the highest lumen per watt fixture that you can find, it will pay itself off the fastest!

Note: Don’t know what a “lumen” is? Look at this discussion for a better idea and understanding of the lighting term.

Lowered maintenance costs through longer lifespan. The fact that LED has a lifespan of 2-3 times longer than other luminaire technologies allows for reduced maintenance costs associated with changing out deadlights. And since parking lot fixtures are high, the costs can seriously start to add up after changing out all of those light boxes. By switching over to LED parking lot lights you allow for a reduction in maintenance costs by 2-3 times through a longer lifespan..

Conclusion and Final Words

Not convinced that LED is a proper option for your parking lot and area lighting needs? Well, you might need to go re-read, visit the links to other resources that we’ve included in this article, and do more research because all of that will truly get your eyes open to the issue of parking lot security efforts and protect your employees and highly valued customers. Don’t put your customers or employees at risk any more and properly illuminate your lot!, you’ll even save money by doing it!

source http://my-led-lighting-guide.tumblr.com/post/151955221008

Making Your Factory Lighting System Quality with LED

As a facility manager or building owner of a factory (of any kind) we know that lighting can be a big issue that is brought up time and time again. But yet the fact of a seemingly “large investment” comes up and it’s put off. It’s time to put that aside and listen to the facts about LED technology and what a proper factory lighting design can bring to your facility when it is done right.

No more flickering, buzzing, high electricity bills, and low quality lighting output. These are just a few benefits that can be literally gone away with when implementing LED products into your factory, inside and out, that will surely stun all of those overlooking the facility along with those working directly in the factories conditions.

We mentioned flickering, buzzing, high electricity bills, and low quality light. Can LED really fix these things? The answer is a big yes, they can and they will as soon as you make the decision to upgrade your current inefficient lighting system and move on over to a better technology, LED.

Let’s discuss each of these points that I’ve mentioned, and how exactly LED products can remove all of these troubles and more.

Flickering. Technologies like high pressure sodium, metal halide, and related are all susceptible to flickering. With LED, even near the end of their lifespan, they will literally never flicker. Flickering can cause stress and less-than-optimal focus and precision. In a factory environment, consistency is key to the manufacturing process and thus cannot be put “on the line” by having lighting fixtures that affect humans and their ability to work at full capacity. Although this sounds like a small issue and it may sound like we are blowing it out of proportion, if you do the research you will find that this is a big issue and can cause major issues in your factory.

Buzzing. This one goes hand in hand with flickering luminaires. While LED is not susceptible to buzzing either, other technologies like MH and HPS are. By replacing metal halide with LED you allow yourself to eliminate both buzzing and flickering from ever occurring in any of your lighting fixtures ever again.

High electricity bills. Factories that have metal halide or HPS fixtures installed are consuming 2, 3, or even 4 times more energy than they would be if they had LED fixtures installed. By making the switch away from these technologies over to LED, you will be able to realize a decrease in energy usage associated with your lights by 2-4 times. This is a great way to improve your factories bottom line, remain within budgets, all while getting the other amazing benefits that LED has to offer (all of which are listed here, and more…).

Low quality of light. LED is known for offering not only the best quality of light, but also it depreciates much slower. When we talk about depreciation with lighting, we are talking about lumen depreciation. In short terms, this is something that happens to all light fixtures. What it does is reduces the amount of actual light output that a given fixture gives out overtime. So while a metal halide at the beginning of it’s life might output at 15,000 lumens, give it a few years and it will be down at 11,000. This makes areas underlit, and again that can cause major safety issue to employees and visitors. With LED, although they too depreciate in lumens, it is a much slower pace and overall much lower than metal halide and HPS light sources. This can allow you to never face an issue of under lighting, or over lighting. Because facilities often over overlight in the start to account for this; which over lighting is no good either. It increases costs associated with buying more fixtures initially, all for what? Nothing, because less fixtures and less energy with LED will produce the same amount of light that more fixtures and more watts metal halide will output.

What Type of Fixtures are Found in Factories?

This question can vary from place to place, but here are the most common lighting fixtures that can be found in both typical and nontypical factories:

- High Bays

- Aisle High Bays

- Hallway Lights (panels & tubes)

- Outdoor lighting (wall packs, parking lot lights, flood lights)

- Vapor proofs and / or tights (used for food factories or factories with dusty / dirty environments)

Conclusion

If the goal in your facility is to improve quality of work for employees while decreasing costs, a LED factory lighting system will do all of that and more.

From no more buzzing to reduced costs; this can all be brought to your facility through an upgrade to LED technology. On top of that, by upgrading you will be able to realize a ROI with LED, which metal halide or HPS will never provide. This is a great way to gain approval for an upgrade and start making the switch sooner than later. LED is the future, hop on board!

source http://my-led-lighting-guide.tumblr.com/post/151560523013

MyLEDLightingGuide Releases New Ultra High Lumen Output LED Retrofit Kits

MyLEDLightingGuide Releases New Ultra High Lumen Output LED Retrofit Kits

source http://my-led-lighting-guide.tumblr.com/post/151451312238

Sport Stadiums Are Converting to LED: But Why?

All across the world company’s, governments, and even sports teams are making the switch to more energy conscious lighting that reduces energy usage and in return; reduces operating costs. For this reason alone is one of the biggest reasons seemingly everyone is converting over to LED products over competing technologies like metal halide (MH).

But, is that the only reason why? There must be other reasons people are making the switch, right? The answer to that is yes! There are many highly valid reasons companies and teams are making the conversion over to LED technology away from less efficient and generally lower quality luminaire sources.

Here are the following main reasons that sport stadiums specifically are moving over to LED sport lighting fixtures.

Reduces operating costs.

This is probably the majorities reason to making the switch to LED from other lighting sources. Depending on whom  you buy your LED fixtures from and which technology you are converting away from, you could realize energy costs related to your lighting by up to 75%. Imagine a 75% reduction in lighting costs in your sports arena or stadium, your bottom line would look so much better. Especially when it comes to the profession sports industry where lighting it in the utmost importance for quality viewing, a lot of light fixtures are needed. With all of these running, a switch to LED in all of those fixtures will prove to be a great investment and highly reduce those costs associated with physically running those high mast and other lights you have in your area.

They last a lot longer.

LED lights are known, especially when bought by a reputable and qualified company, to last 2, 3 or sometimes even 4 times longer than luminaires like metal halide or HPS.

This can allow you to stop buying lighting as often, and cut down light purchases by 2,3 or 4 times. On top of that cost saving benefit, consider your maintenance costs that you encounter when you need to switch out a light source. How much does it cost, on average, to pay someone to switch out a single light? And if you have high mast lights, which most stadiums do, you will be paying a lot more than other types of light fixtures. Why is this? Because they are typically VERY high in the air to get the full benefit of the fixture. This makes it take longer to switch out each individual bulb and thus, higher costs to maintain. Do yourself and your sports facility a favor and make the switch to LED and you can reduce the amount of times you need to pay someone to maintain your lights by 2-4 times!

LED is the future, not metal halide.

Over the years LED has done nothing but grow in market size, improve in quality and efficiency, and become adopted by more and more people, companies, and government entities. LED market size has been estimated to continue it’s growth for many years. And with more and more company’s entering this market, especially selling commercial lighting products, the prices continue to drop and become a more affordable investment for facility managers (or stadium managers in this case) to make.

LED will improve your stadiums appearance.

A good appeal to both visitors to the stadium along with anyone watching from home is vital for keeping people’s attention along with creating a near-perfect lighting situation for those who are watching the game play out. Low quality lighting will put visitors off and even worse, annoy them. While LED lights will never buzz or flicker, that doesn’t mean that metal halide or HPS lights don’t. They are susceptible to this, and having this in your stadium can really annoy visitors, and even start to distract from the players. As with any business, curb appeal is vital to keeping your business alive; especially in this environment in which you have lots of visitors relying on having an exception experience.

Conclusion

From energy savings to improved appearance, you can see the major reasons on why LED is becoming the norm in the lighting industry and is the future of lighting in almost every application.

LED is the future of facilities of all types, including sport stadiums, arenas, and areas. Are you going to be apart of it? With knowing all of these reasons on why sport stadiums are converting to LED, it just makes sense!

source http://my-led-lighting-guide.tumblr.com/post/151287866373