10 Advantages of LED Lighting

Lighting comprises a large segment of energy use in the United States and is often a component of energy-saving initiatives. Optimizing the lighting systems of a building enables businesses, shopping centers, multifamily properties, local and state government agencies, and school districts to achieve greater energy efficiency, cut utility expenses, enhance occupant safety, and hit sustainability goals. As the most energy-efficient artificial light source available, LEDs are an effective choice when aiming to reduce lighting-related energy costs and waste. Here are the top 10 advantages of LED lighting.

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1. Offers a Positive Return on Investment

Long-term LED use offers a positive ROI because they require up to 90% less power than incandescent bulbs and nearly half the energy of fluorescent lights.

Consider that a single school could save over $5,000 annually in utility costs by replacing fluorescent lights with LEDs. With government grants and utility rebates available to many districts, the cost of installing LEDs can be drastically reduced, so a positive ROI may be achieved quickly.

In addition, LEDs last 25 times longer than incandescent bulbs and up to 5 times longer than compact fluorescent lamps. Therefore, your facility team will not need to replace or maintain them as often as the alternatives, lowering overall maintenance costs.

2. Provides a Durable and Sustainable Lighting Solution

Since LEDs are long-lasting, efficient, and compatible with solar panels, they can also help with carbon footprint reduction. LED lighting upgrades help organizations keep pace with sustainability best practices and future-proof their facilities. According to research conducted by Harvard Business Review, consumers trust brands that deliver on sustainability efforts. Prioritizing this can create goodwill within the communities they serve.

LEDs can also help establishments stay aligned with or ahead of federal and state regulatory mandates, such as the rule requiring publicly traded companies to provide enhanced climate-related disclosures. This rule, proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), requires the tracking and reporting of risks and mitigation efforts related to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Another major advantage of LED lights is that they require less energy from GHG-emitting power plants, this means upgrading lighting systems to incorporate LEDs can be part of sustainability efforts that must be reported to the SEC. Additionally, when lighting systems connect to energy monitoring software, facility managers can easily track energy consumption and GHG emissions, so you are prepared for SEC reporting.

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3. Fosters Occupant Well-Being 

LEDs that are designed to mimic natural daylight can boost mood and well-being. Researchers widely accept that bright natural light has a positive impact on physical and mental health, reducing anxiety, depression, and work-related injuries. In buildings that lack natural light, LEDs offer an effective solution. They can also emit directional light and enable task lighting, which can help prevent eye strain.

4. Increases Occupant Productivity

Well-being affects engagement, and engaged individuals tend to produce better outcomes. With its positive impact on well-being, LED lighting promotes increased productivity.

LEDs also emit blue light, similar to the sun, helping building occupants feel more alert, engaged, and able to concentrate. For example, consider that in a study of 21,000 elementary school students, greater sunlight exposure increased reading outcomes by 26% and math outcomes by 20% &#; when compared to children who received less sunlight. Organizations can install LED lighting solutions that mimic sunlight to reap the same benefits of natural light within the indoor environment. 

5. Enables Flexible and Future-Ready Designs

Despite varying temperature ranges, LED lighting is able to maintain performance and efficiency. Therefore, you can install LEDs in cold or hot areas, inside or outside, and depend on them to function properly. LEDs are also tiny, solid-state devices that can be housed in strips, tubes, or bulbs, allowing for flexible and attractive installation options to best suit building aesthetics and design.

The increased adoption and implementation of LED lighting programs will continue for the foreseeable future due to new energy efficiency standards that aim to reduce the sale of incandescent light bulbs. Upgrading to LEDs can help future-proof your facility and gain energy savings sooner rather than later.

6. Promotes Facility Safety and Security

Inadequate lighting can lead to trips, falls, and industrial equipment accidents, as well as impact building security. Sufficient, bright lighting is necessary to create a safe workplace and comply with illumination requirements set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

LEDs offer bright, high-quality light to increase visibility inside workspaces, hallways, stairways, and outdoor environments, making these areas safer and enhancing occupant comfort. They also offer adequate lighting to deter vandalism and trespassing at facilities.

Unlike fluorescent bulbs, LEDs are mercury-free, eliminating the risk of mercury exposure. 

7. Streamlines Efficiency When Connected to IoT

LED lights are dimmable, typically operate on low-voltage, and easily integrate with occupancy sensors, making them inherently suitable for the Internet of Things (IoT). Connecting a lighting system to IoT has many advantages, such as real-time monitoring and turning lights on and off via smart controls, helping achieve energy efficiency and decrease utility costs.

8. Decreases Operational Downtime

An organization could stand to lose over $100,000 per hour of downtime, so every minute counts. Since LEDs are durable and have long life spans, they won&#;t degrade as quickly as other bulbs, meaning you won&#;t have to stop operations to repair the lighting system as often. LEDs turn on instantly rather than needing to warm up, reducing downtime after a power outage.

9. Invites Various Funding Opportunities

Organizations can access various funding and financing options, like grants and utility rebates, to implement energy-efficient upgrades. At SitelogIQ (SIQ), our lighting and facility experts can help identify funding opportunities and assist you through the application process.

For example, we provided guidance and support as our customer, Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS), applied for grant funding through the local utility company&#;s School Uplift Program. MNPS was awarded over $450,000 to upgrade its energy systems.

We collaborated with the district to implement smart LED lighting and monitoring technology to track and forecast utility usage. Our partnership with MNPS helped the district experience an energy reduction of 8.5 million kWh and $900,000 in avoided costs. In the last 4.5 years, the district achieved an average energy reduction of 20%.

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Additionally, efficient lighting design wins stakeholder confidence due to its ability to provide well-lit facilities, create greater safety for building occupants, and, in most cases, support higher productivity. Stakeholders may be excited to invest in your establishment&#;s sustainability initiative, including plans to retrofit existing lighting systems with LEDs.

10. Allows for Easy Energy-Use Monitoring

LED technology easily integrates with energy management software like mySiteIQ. As a facility intelligence platform, mySiteIQ helps facility directors, managers, and leaders get actionable building information in real-time. Utilize data and analytics to monitor, track, and record light use to compile accurate reports for stakeholders, identify opportunities for lighting improvements, and make more informed decisions.

How SitelogIQ Can Optimize Your Facility&#;s Lighting System

Upgrading an outdated lighting system is essential to reach sustainability goals and cut energy costs. We can help your organization identify inefficient lighting systems by conducting an energy audit, and then recommend an energy-efficient solution that best aligns with your highest needs. Our centralized approach qualifies our experts to understand the unique demands of your facility as well as provide turnkey LED lighting solutions tailored to solve specific problems.

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LED lighting is by far the most energy efficient, the cleanest, and the most eco-friendly way of illumination. LED lighting comes with a multitude of amazing benefits.

Long Life

Long lifetime stands out as the number one benefit of LED lights. LED bulbs and diodes have an outstanding operational life time expectation of up to 100 hours. This is 11 years of continuous operation, or 22 years of 50 percent operation. If you leave the LED fixture on for eight hours per day, it would take about 20 years before you'd have to replace the LED bulb.

LEDs are different than standard lighting: They don't really burn out and stop working like standard light bulbs. Moreover, the lighting diodes emit lower output levels over a very long period of time and become less bright.

Energy Efficiency

Today's most efficient way of illumination and lighting, with an estimated energy efficiency of 80-90 percent when compared to traditional lighting and conventional light bulbs. This means that about 80 percent of the electrical energy is converted to light, while 20 percent is lost and converted into other forms of energy such as heat.

With traditional incandescent light bulbs which operate at 20 percent energy efficiency only, 80 percent of the electricity is lost as heat.

Ecologically Friendly

LED lights are free of toxic chemicals. Most conventional fluorescent lighting bulbs contain a multitude of materials such as mercury that are dangerous for the environment.

LED lights contain no toxic materials and are 100 percent recyclable, and will help to reduce your carbon footprint by up to a third. The long operational lifetime span mentioned above also means that one LED light bulb can save material and production of 25 incandescent light bulbs. A big step towards a greener future!

Durable Quality

LEDs are extremely durable and are built with sturdy components that are highly rugged and can withstand even the roughest conditions.

Because LED lights are resistant to shock, vibrations, and extreme impacts, they make great outdoor lighting systems for rough conditions and exposure to weather, wind, rain, or even external vandalism, traffic-related public exposure, and construction or manufacturing sites.

Zero UV Emissions

LED illumination produces little infrared light and close to no UV emissions. Because of this, LED lighting is highly suitable not only for goods and materials that are sensitive to heat due to the benefit of little radiated heat emission, but also for illumination of UV--sensitive objects or materials such as in museums, art galleries, archeological sites, etc.

Design Flexibility

LEDs can be combined in any shape to produce highly efficient illumination. Individual LEDs can be dimmed, resulting in a dynamic control of light, color, and distribution. Well-designed LED illumination systems can achieve fantastic lighting effects, not only for the eye, but also for the mood and the mind.

Operational in Extremely Cold or Hot Temperatures

LEDs are ideal for operation under cold and low outdoor temperature settings. For fluorescent lamps, low temperatures may affect operation and present a challenge, but LED illumination operates well also in cold settings, such as for outdoor winter settings, freezer rooms, etc.

Light Dispersement

LED is designed to focus its light and can be directed to a specific location without the use of an external reflector, achieving a higher application efficiency than conventional lighting. Well-designed LED illumination systems are able to deliver light more efficiently to the desired location.

Instant Lighting and Frequent Switching

LED lights brighten up immediately when powered on, which has great advantages for infrastructure projects such as traffic and signal lights.

LED lights can also be switched off and on frequently and without affecting the LEDs lifetime or light emission. In contrast, traditional lighting may take several seconds to reach full brightness, and frequent on/off switching does drastically reduce operational life expectancy.

Low Voltage

A low-voltage power supply is sufficient for LED illumination. This makes it easy to use LED lighting also in outdoor settings, by connection to an external solar-energy source, and is a big advantage when it comes to using LED technology in remote or rural areas.

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