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December 15th, 2011
High Maintenance Lighting? I’ll Pass
Being called “high maintenance” is probably something most of us would rather avoid, but compared to LED luminaires that’s exactly how High Intensity Discharge (HID) lighting solutions could be described.
Unlike LED luminaires that can provide more than a decade of near maintenance-free sustained illumination, HID systems require much more maintenance over such time frames. The main reason for the differing maintenance needs between the two technologies is differences in the rate of lumen depreciation or the rate at which a light source loses light output over time. While LED luminaires can be designed to have a very low rate of lumen depreciation that eliminates the need to re-lamp over their intended application lives, HID solutions are unable to avoid re-lamping cycles and the associated costs that come along with such required maintenance.
A lighting design process is an effective tool that incorporates product specific lumen maintenance predictions for a given source technology to help predict some level of sustained illumination performance into the future. Lighting designs also assume that the lighting system selected will be properly maintained to avoid illumination levels that fall below their original design intent. For even the best HID sources, it typically means re-lamping every two years for a normal dusk-to-dawn system that operates daily. Should you decide to delay re-lamping you have, in effect, decided to dip below the minimum illumination levels that you had originally set out to deliver. It also means an increase in random lamp outages as lamps begin to burnout at a much faster rate and low light levels increasingly become no light levels.
Unfortunately as budgets become tighter it seems easier to delay or simply eliminate group re-lamping altogether as a means to save money. This, unfortunately, comes at the expense of safety and quality of life concerns.
LED luminaires offer a better solution. In addition to the potential for significant energy savings, there is also the opportunity to significantly reduce maintenance-related expense. These combined savings can help avoid some of the tough budget decisions we face today.
So although we may not always have a choice in terms of avoiding “high maintenance” people, we definitely can avoid the “high maintenance” lighting systems of the past by incorporating LED solutions today.
How are you being proactive and avoiding possible maintenance issues? Share your story.
6 Responses to “High Maintenance Lighting? I’ll Pass”
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At our office we are using LED lights for a week now and it is simply amazing. Warm and beautifull light.
Well, according to me the day is not far,when LED lights will replace all incandescent bulbs after all these lights are much more eco-friendly
. Though currently people may be a bit apprehensive about this technology considering its high price compared to normal bulbs but the manner in which innovation s are taking place related to this technology am sure soon LEd wil be the only source of artificial lighting. Recently, came across an article which say how Siemens has developed a powerful LED light for use in the cultivation of plants. It emits a deep-red light at a wavelength of 660 nanometers, which is perfect for plant photosynthesis. This is awesome… To know more about this technology check out( blog[dot]siemens[dot]co[dot]in )
So glad to hear you are enjoying your LED lights.
Nikki
My name is Brenda and I’m in the Public Affairs Department at the League of Municipalities here in Raleigh, I’m writing a story for the February issue of the League’s newspaper, Southern City on the topic of LED Lighting in Public Spaces. I recently read about CREE’s LED City program and wanted to learn more about it. I’m wondering if there is someone at CREE with a few minutes to spare for an interview the first week of January. (The League offices will close this afternoon and reopen after New Year’s.)
I only have a few questions, and I’ll paste them below for easy reference. Thanks in advance for your help with this.
Brenda
QUESTIONS
1. How much money did CREE invest in the LED City program? How many cities were involved? Was it only in North Carolina?
2. What were the goals going into the program? What did you hope the pilot would achieve?
3. Did you meet those goals?
4. What’s next?
Thanks for your inquiry. We are extremely proud of the momentum that the Cree LED City program developed over the five years it ran—spanning cities across three continents. We have since merged the LED City program in the U.S. Department of Energy Municipal Street Lighting Consortium. We’ll email you to discuss what we can do to help with your story.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Ray!!!