Traditional warehouse lighting is fraught with problems. The older “bell style” High Pressure Sodium and Metal Halide lighting is terribly inefficient, costly to maintain and emits a poor quality of light. Many warehouses have switched to linear fluorescent technologies like T8 and T5 lighting only to find out afterwards that any savings in electricity costs has been more than consumed by the additional maintenance related to these systems.

It seems like warehouse owners and operators just can’t win when it comes to lighting. Well that was the past. Facility managers now have a smart choice in lighting – intelligent LED Lighting.

Intelligent LED lighting combines the energy savings of LED’s (40-60% ) with the ability to manage the lighting system through technology such as 0-100% dimming, daylight sensing and occupancy monitoring.

Interstate Warehousing in Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee chose to upgrade to intelligent LED lighting from Digital Lumens’. In the new area of the Indiana facility, the LED system saves $30,000 per year in comparison to the older area of the warehouse. The secret to the cost savings in the Digital Lumens system is that the lighting can be programmed to conform to the warehouse usage, and can be set to dim or shut a light off in an aisle or area during periods of inactivity. Refrigerated warehouses will see even more savings because LED lighting gives off no heat, therefore lowering cooling costs!

Similarly, the Cold Canyon Material Recovery Facility reduced its energy costs by two-thirds by replacing more than 80 400-watt metal halide lamps with 148-watt LEDs, saving the company more than $13,000 annually! John Ryan, facilities manager, said the employees love the “brighter, whiter light.” With no maintenance costs and a 50,000-hour lifetime, Cold Canyon will see a return on investment in less than three years.

Reducing operating costs is top-priority for warehouse and distribution center owners. Maximizing efficiencies in all aspects of the operation are being used to squeeze as much cost savings as possible. Intelligent LEDs can reduce lighting related operating expenses by as much as 90% and often have a payback under 1 year. Over their lifetime, Intelligent LED Lighting costs 8-10 times less than traditional lighting. That’s money in the bank!

China has always been on the forefront of large-scale LED lighting installations, and does not disappoint with its recent installation of more than one million Cree LEDs along 75 miles of highway throughout the country. The old high-pressure sodium fixtures had an orange glow, and the new LEDs shine a bright white and only consume 270 to 300 watts. The new lighting consumes 60% less energy and the savings will pay for the project in just four years. LEDs need little to no maintenance, which is one of the main advantages, according to a press release by Cree. Maintenance is costly, hazardous for workers and inconveniences drivers. Everybody wins!

From our research, the biggest LED street lighting installation in the United States was in Los Angeles in 2009. Los Angeles was planning on replacing 140,000 street lights in the city over the next five years, with an estimated project completion in 2014. LEDs, which are more durable than most outdoor lighting, will save the city at least 40% on electricity, $48 million in the next seven years, and reduce carbon emissions by 40,500 tons each year, equivalent to taking 6,700 cars off the road!

The results of the Department of Energy’s second Gateway study say that people prefer artwork illuminated with LEDs rather than artwork with halogen lighting. The DOE replaced 50-90-watt halogen lighting with 12-watt LED PAR38 lamps in the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene, Oregon. The new LED system in the gallery uses only 14% of the energy used by the halogens, and also lasts 10 times longer. In another gallery close by, another experiment confirmed people prefer LEDs. At the Gordon Gilkey Study Center Gallery, clusters of art pieces, including an oil painting, a black and white photographic print, and a checkered-color car, were placed on a grey wall. Each cluster was illuminated with one of four lamps. One group was lit with halogens, and the others lit with LEDs with different color temperatures. Artists, museum staff and visitors all preferred the LED lighting, and visitors commented on the way the LED lighting accented the blue colors in the artwork.

In the first Gateway study, 54 12-watt PAR38 LED lamps were installed in the Coeta and Donald Barker Special Exhibitions Gallery, along with 15- and 23-watt CFLs and 90-watt halogen PAR38 lamps. They concluded the LED light was of much better quality and used much less energy.

Sure, you’ve seen most of our blogs raving about the benefits of installing LED lighting in homes, office spaces, parking lots, grocery stores, hospitals and more. One application we haven’t spoken much about is sporting arenas! In fact, Light Emitting Designs installed high bay LED lighting in the Dyer Indoor Soccer Arena in Indiana, and the owner, Mike Ward, loves it! He says the arena is open seven days a week November through April, and after a year of having the LEDs, the arena has saved 60% on electricity alone. LED lighting was also convenient for the arena because the high bay lighting is placed so high that it is incredibly costly and difficult to replace the lighting.

Solnar Metrolight Technology Inc. just finished replacing lighting inside the Beijing International Club Tennis Court. This job was tough because the company had to match the same design and amount of light for an indoor sports arena as the old lighting gave off. The lighting couldn’t be too bright or too dark or it would pose a safety threat to players and spectators. In May, the tennis court replaced 40 1000-watt lights with 196-watt LEDs. The new lighting was brighter, used less energy and had a longer lifetime than the previous lighting system. Plus, players no longer have to wait for the lamps to warm up and turn on! LEDs turn on to full power with a flick of a switch!

Neither article mentioned this, but because LEDs give off very little or no heat, we bet both sporting arenas’ players and spectators are now enjoying cooler temperatures!

After the earthquake and associated damage at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, researchers began investigating the nation’s energy consumption and saving methods. A study lead by the Institute of Energy Economics, overseen by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, determined that if every fluorescent and incandescent light in Japan was replaced with an LED lamp, the country could reduce its energy consumption by 9%. The IEE concluded there are 1.6 billion lights used in Japan, which account for 150.6 kilowatts per hour of energy. If Japan replaced all its lighting with LEDs, the country would slash its energy consumption to 58.4 billion kilowatts per hour, with the greatest amount of savings in office buildings.

In Osaka Prefecture in Japan, LED lighting has been installed at a park on the Kizu River. Brand new 25-watt Philips Lumiled 25-watt LED lamps replaced high-pressure mercury lamps throughout the park, reducing electricity bills by 88%. The brightness of the new lamps, according to Gizmag.com, is comparable to the mercury lamps, but with much more uniform lighting than the old lamps. The LEDs can be targeted at the ground or at a specific location without any light escaping above the lamp, which also reduces light pollution.

LED Lighting is playing an important role in energy consumption reduction around the world. With the lessons learned in Japan after a natural disaster many countries are becoming proactive.

Here at Relumination, we try to keep up with the latest LED lighting industry and installation news through our blogs and news posts. Though we have written many blogs about it in the past, one of the more popular installations of LEDs in cities, and even small towns, is street lighting. The benefits of LED street lights definitely outweigh the costs! The lights have a brighter, whiter light than the dim, yellowish hue street lights usually have, and some can also be dimmed. They also consume less than half as much energy as high pressure sodium lights.

Arizona has been installing LEDs all over the state, including 425 LED street lights in Kingman last March. The city has 900 high pressure sodium street lights, most that consume250 watts, but some produce 400 watts. Though the installation will only cover about half of the lights, the city is expected to decrease energy production by at least 40%. City officials did a pilot of different LED lights and an induction light to judge their performance and light quality. The city officials were most impressed with LEDs and the citizens appreciated the “softer light” This project is partially funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant.

In the Okemos downtown area in Michigan, citizens recently gathered to “Turn on the Lights” of their 25 new LED street lights. Paul Brake, executive director of the Okemos Downtown Development Authority, said the new LED lighting is “one step closer” to becoming a “green” township through cutting energy consumption and carbon emissions. The new LEDs will consume approximately 59% less energy than incandescent lamps, said an article from the Towne Courier. This project was also partially funded through the U.S. DOE EECBS.

Hospitals: a building that absolutely needs to be illuminated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There is no better and cost effective choice for lighting than LEDs. Hospitals see the usual benefits from solid state lighting, including a decrease in electricity and maintenance costs, plus more! In MRI rooms, LED lights are optimal because they aren’t affected by the magnetic fields of the machines and have long lifetimes so that hospitals do not have to worry about the room being occupied constantly by maintenance workers. Many LED lamps are dimmable, which is perfect for CAT scan and ultrasound rooms.

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