Lighting Upgrades: CFLs vs. LED Lamps

Posted in News - Blog

There is always talk about which is a better light to install in a commercial building, a CFL or an LED.  We are going to give you a quick run down on why CFLs are being chosen more over  LEDs.

The standard CFL has a lifetime of 8,000 hours and cost about $1.24, so the total cost for bulbs over 30,000 hours would be around $4.65. As it uses 13 watts, a CFL bulb would use approximately 390 kilowatt hours, over 30,000hrs. At the current average price of $0.10 per kilowatt hour, the consumer would have to pay about $39.00 to run a single CFL bulb in their facility.

So in the end, the total approximate cost  to run a CFL bulb over a 30,000 hour lifespan in a business facility is about $43.65.

The standard LED bulb has a lifetime of 30,000 hours, but unfortunately an average single bulb cost around $120.00.  As it uses 7.5 watts, an LED bulb would approximately use 245 kilowatt hours, over 30,000hrs. At the current average price of $0.10 per kilowatt hour, the consumer would have to pay about $24.50 to run a single LED bulb in their facility.

So in conclusion, the total approximate cost to run an LED bulb over a 30,000 hour lifespan in a business facility is about $144.49.

As you can see the LED exceeds the CFL in lifetime hours and cost per bulb. Over time installing a CFL in your facility is cheaper than an LED, because of the cost of each LED bulb, and saves you money on your energy bill. There are also many other problems with using LEDs throughout your facility.

The main problem with LEDs is the light they produce is directional, meaning that they work great when you want to point the light in one direction. Since the LED produces directional light, an individual LED is not as bright as a CFL and it does produce a great deal of light, which is why they don’t work well for a commercial business environment.

The best thing to do when it comes to installing CFLs or LEDs in your facility is to go with a CFL bulb until the LED bulbs become more affordable and critiqued to be more efficiently used in business environments.

The Cost of Waiting for Businesses to Upgrade Their Lights!

Posted in News - Blog

It is always shocking to us when the decision to retrofit a business facility with energy efficient lighting is turned down. Sometimes, of course, the decision is thrown out due to financial problems, but if it is a financial issue we have self funded financing to help make it easier. Waiting to retrofit your business makes you lose more money than you would to upgrade your T12 lamps to T8 lamps. If these proposals that we give out are acted upon right away, the energy savings alone would help pay for a significant part of the project. On top of the energy savings the utility companies give out rebates and incentives for businesses to retrofit their facilities to energy efficient lighting.

“Businesses need to act fast to cash in on the accessible rebates and incentives while they are still available. With recent regulations practically eliminating traditional T12s by 2012, these incentives will not be present for long.”