Which Type of Lighting is Best for Your Business?

Introduction

As a business, when it comes to lighting, you are faced with more choice now than ever before.

There are still traditional options, such as fluorescent lighting, but also newer technologies, including LED lighting, which can offer considerable cost savings, energy efficiency and all-round versatility.

How Lights Compare for Energy Efficiency

The Energy Saving Trust points out that you can make potential savings by switching incandescent or halogen bulbs to LEDs:

• You can save around £7 per bulb per year if you replace a 100 watt incandescent bulb with its LED equivalent
• Replacing a 50 watt halogen bulb with an LED, you can save £3 per bulb per year.

Which? magazine suggests that LED lighting could save you hundreds of pounds in the long run.

Basing its figures on a typical 700+ lumen bulb, it puts the annual running cost of an LED is £1.71, compared to £8.42 for a halogen bulb.

When comparing lights for energy efficiency, it is important to measure this in lumens. A lumen is an SI derived unit of luminous flux, the measure of the amount of light visible to the human eye from a light source.

Traditionally, lightbulbs were measured in watts, since the higher the wattage, the brighter the light. But LEDs have a very low wattage, yet produce bright light.

In its lighting guide, the Energy Saving Trust shows that a 70 watt halogen bulb outputs 1,600 lumens, but an LED bulb can output the same number of lumens at only 14 watts.

A 6 watt LED bulb has a lifetime of around 30,000 hours, or 30 years. By comparison, an 11 watt CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) lasts 10 years. A 35 watt halogen light lasts two years.

Therefore, with LED lighting, you get more lumens for less wattage, and a light source with a much longer lifespan.

Benefits of Energy Efficient Lights

There are three broad types of benefits to business in using energy efficient lights:

• Financial
• Operational
• Ecological

The financial benefits are that businesses save money on their overheads, with lights that last longer, and waste less energy.

Instead of heating up a filament, LED lighting is powered by superconductors, which are highly efficient in converting energy directly to light. There are also financial savings in not having to replace lamps as regularly, since energy efficient lights last much longer.

The operational benefits are that LED lights are virtually a fit-and-forget technology, requiring far less routine maintenance.

Finally, energy efficient lights are kinder to the environment, boosting a business’s green credentials.

Comparing Quality of Light

It is not just the economic benefits of energy efficient lighting you should consider.

The quality of light in a workplace is essential for the wellbeing of the workforce, and can have an impact on productivity.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) points out that different levels of lighting are best suited to different types of work, and that poor lighting reduces a person’s ability to perform tasks and concentrate.

LED lighting is multi-purpose in this respect. It comes in variety of colour temperatures, from warm to cool light. And you can apply it as both general and task lighting.

Benefits of High Quality Lighting

With high quality lighting, you can make sure the level and type of lighting is appropriate to the area of the workplace and the work being carried out there.

This is good for staff wellbeing and, with LED lighting, cost-effective too.

Conclusion

Lighting is a critical aspect of business, and getting it right, can make a big difference to overheads and productivity.

Energy efficient lighting is an effective way to future-proof your business. The best way to make the change to LED lighting is to first get specialist advice about the right lighting system for your enterprise.