In recent years, there has been a big push to show the benefits of LED lighting for our homes and more importantly our businesses. We know that they can work out to be more cost effective due to their longevity, vast reduction in energy usage and provide a clean, crisp variance of light in addition to being easy to install and replace. These same benefits can also apply to large scale manufacturing industry and an increasing number of them are coming to realise the vast benefits and savings that can be achieved by simply switching out their old lamps.
Reducing costs
Every business is looking to reduce costs where possible and lighting costs can be a major part of these expenses. The average electricity consumption in a UK office building includes some 33% spent on lighting, 20% on heating and around the same on cooling and ventilation. In fact, the cost of lighting is estimated to account for anywhere up to 40% of the UK business electricity bill.
However, the biggest shock in this is that around 60% of this amount is wasted due to the use of fluorescent, incandescent and halogen lighting systems. This means that the switch to LEDs can reduce this waste dramatically. Added to this is the ease that daylight and motion sensors can be incorporated into LED systems, which could potentially reduce the saving by another 20-30%.
Return on investment
Another big aspect for the business is looking at the Return on Investment or ROI of any changes made within the business. Because the savings on electricity bills can be so significant for a business, there is a very fast return on investment on LED lighting. Within two and a half years, a business will have recouped the expenditure for the system and will begin to make savings, with these savings continuing year on year.
The lifespan of the LED systems is another reason that these savings can be significant. Most LED systems have a lifespan of around 20 years, so this means once than initial 2.5 years’ period has passed, you could be making savings for in excess of 17 years before a replacement system would be required.
Going green
With the increased awareness within businesses of their impact on the environment, those reductions in electricity usage is about more than just saving money. The reduction in CO2 emission is significant and the savings made on the cost of electricity, which could actually increase in the next few years as costs increase, could be reinvested in other renewable energy technologies.
A big sector in the UK at the moment are commercial properties installing photovoltaic or PV systems to generate electricity from the sun. Much in the same way that houses are adding these solar panels to their roofs to generate their own power, so too can business premises. And large premises such as factories have a much larger roof space – the more space there is, the more electricity can be generated.
Conclusion
The switch to LED lighting for all types of business makes simple sense. On top of the monetary and environmental gains, there are simple areas such as an improved work environment for staff with a better quality of lighting. All this can increase productivity and lead to happier staff – always a benefit for any business.
