There's a lot of different styles and brands of commercial lighting out there. Some are far more efficient than others. It's common knowledge that LED Lighting is more efficient than florescent, incandescent, or metal halide lighting. The question is, how much more efficient? We did a lot of research to answer this very question for you.
So how much difference is there in how much energy LED's use versus the others? Here at LED Light Upgrade, the commercial high bay and mast flood lighting we offer has an efficiency of up to 170 lumens of light output for watt of electric used. Compare that to the 50-100 lumens per watt for florescent lighting, 87 lumens per watt for metal halide, or 16 lumens per watt for incandescent. That's a big difference! For this comparison, we'll be using our T18 LED High Bay Light. The 150-Watt variation of these lights has an output of 24,000 lumens. To get that same amount of light using a metal halide lamp, it will take 275 watts. Or for a florescent lamp, you would need to use 400 watts. For an incandescent bulb, that will use up a whopping 1600 watts!
So we've seen what a tremendous difference in power consumption LED commercial lighting can make for you. But now let's crunch some figures about how many dollars it will actually save for you. The average power rate in Arkansas is 9.3 cents per KWH. Many places in the US, it is more than that, so for this calculation, we'll use an average of 10 cents/kwh. So to begin, to run the 150 Watt LED High bay light, it will cost 15 cents to run it for 10 hours. (150W x 10 hours = 1.5 kwh). And if we were to use the metal halide, cost would be 27.5 cents for 10 hours. Switching to the florescent, it will cost 40 cents to run for 10 hours. And if we jump up to the incandescent, it will cost you $1.60 for 10 hours runtime. And this is just for one fixture. Lets say you have a commercial building with 20 of these 24,000 lumen lights. For the LED lighting, it will cost just $3.00 for a 10 hour workday for all the lights. Multiply that times the 261 working days in a year, and you come up with a total cost of $783 dollars for lighting a year. Now lets compare the other three methods.
So for ongoing use, we've shown that LED is far cheaper and more efficient than the other lighting methods. Is there other things that affect the actual cost though? We'll explore those next. For one thing, high quality LED lighting is more expensive to purchase than florescent and incandescent. Pricing can change a lot with supplier and quality, but for the 150 watt LED unit we've been referring to in our comparison, it's right around $200 per unit, less if you're a contractor. So for the 20 units, it may be up to $4000 to switch over to LED from florescent, yet in less than 4 years, you can pay off the units with energy saving alone. The other thing that affects your cost is bulb lifespan. Let's compare them below.
So while LED's are more expensive to purchase up front, you'll save a lot of money on energy, plus have a lot longer lifespan, less maintenance, and less fading versus the other lighting methods. If you would like us to figure out how much LED lighting would save you in your building, let us know and we'd be happy to figure it out for you. Please comment with any questions you might have and we'll help you in any way possible.
