Fluorescent vs. LED: In the office

Aug. 18, 2011 - PRLog -- Many people wonder about choosing the correct efficient lighting solution for their office or facility, and they aren’t able to decide. I am writing this in order to help people choose the lighting that is tailored for their needs. I am not on any specific side—I sell both energy efficient lighting solutions. There are advantages and disadvantages for all of the solutions out there.


Lets start with the pros and cons:
   
LED—Light emitting diode is a solid state lighting source. In a nut shell, all an LED consists of is basically a small amount of silicon with wires attached to either side of it. The silicon is what makes the actual light, and it’s also what makes the LEDs expensive, as well as solar panels, because in order to develop the silicon, it must be grown, which takes time(money).  One of my problems with some of the LEDs out there is that as a consumer, you are not going to be able to tell if the guy that put the fixture together in his garage accounted for correct heat dissipation. Heat MUST be drawn away from the actual LED in order to ensure the long life that we keep hearing about. LEDs generally produce more efficient light output because of the lack of moving parts, and they boast a longer life, which is generally between 50,000 and 100,000 hours.
   
Fluorescent—or should I say electronic fluorescent. These days, everything is going digital, which means zeros and ones instead of sine and cosine waves. An mp3 is digital, which is missing some things which makes it more efficient than an actual analog copy of the music because our ears can’t tell the difference between the two, even though the mp3 is sort of “fake”. With electronic equipment, we are actually able to transform and distribute the power to the lamps more efficiently than the magnetic ballasts from the past, because our eyes can’t differentiate between the two.  Fluorescent lighting these days produces very high quality light—as opposed to LED, which generally has a lower quality light output. There’s a term for this called CRI (color rendering index); this means that we can see colors better, using less light. Fluorescent is substantially less expensive than LED, and it carries a much less expensive replacement cost.
My opinions:
   
I believe that the best solution to retrofit a fluorescent light is a fluorescent light. There are many fantastic solutions for LEDs, however, I do not think that they belong in the office environment—yet. I have seen excellent LED flood and spot lamps, as well as a few nifty out of the box solutions for remote ballasted CFLs (2-pin and 4-pin).


A couple tips:
   
-When you’re buying LEDs, make sure that they are manufactured from start to finish by a reputable company that is large enough to do a little testing, research, and development. Maybe take a look at Phillips, Sylvania, and GE.
   
-When you’re replacing your T12 fluorescent lights, make sure that you are getting the highest rebates possible. There are ways to really lower your costs, dramatically.  

Heritage Electric:
http://www.HESelectric.com
http://www.xcelrebates.com

Other articles by Matt:
http://www.prlog.org/11614564-infiniti-of-denvers-efficie...
http://www.prlog.org/11564682-how-to-get-xcel-and-your-city-to-pay-for-90-of-your-warehouse-lighting-retrofit.html
http://www.prlog.org/11531891-what-you-should-consider-when-hiring-an-electrician-for-your-facility-maintenance.html
http://www.prlog.org/11528317-xcel-raises-fluorescent-lighting-rebates-by-50-reducing-upfront-retrofit-costs.html

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We are a Denver Electrician that specializes in building and facility lighting maintenance as well as Residential and Industrial Electrical Service. We design energy efficient lighting and utilize Xcel's rebates and we'll guide you through the process.