Make The Switch: How Converting to LED Lighting Can Benefit Your Organization
“Wait, you guys do lighting?” We hear that question quite often when we begin working with potential customers, and we’re always excited to explain how and why we operate our LED lighting division of The LockOut Company to them. While most of our articles discuss building security, school lockdowns, and making your facilities a safer place for your occupants, we thought it would be a good idea to shift gears for a minute and discuss the benefits of converting your existing lighting system to high-efficiency LED.
Benefit 1: Utility Savings
This is one of the clearest benefits of LED for most organizations. Simply put, converting all of your existing lighting to LED can save your organization up to 80% in lighting energy costs on your monthly utility bill. This savings are often hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per month depending on the size of your operation. We’ve seen campuses with multiple buildings cut their entire energy bill by more than half simply by switching to LED.
Benefit 2: Energy Footprint
The correlation between a lower energy bill and a smaller energy footprint post LED conversion is no coincidence. By reducing the overall wattage used by your operation, you are not only reducing your costs, but also the environmental impact of your facilities through lower power consumption, which leads to a smaller drain on the energy grid as a whole.
Benefit 3: Longer Life
With a lifespan that is up to forty times longer than fluorescent, and up to seven times longer than other, somewhat newer options like Compact Fluorescent (CFL), LED lighting is a much more effective long-term option for buildings of all kinds, but is especially prudent in facilities with large, hard to replace lighting fixtures such as high-bay gym lighting, or large pole lit fields and parking lots.
Benefit 4: Less Maintenance
The longer life of LED lights means that they require less maintenance, which reduces overall costs further. Most LEDs can be installed and then essentially forgotten for up to 50,000 hours in some cases, that’s almost six years running 24 hours per day! For comparison, a fluorescent tube running at 24 hours per day would need to be changed about every seven weeks.
Benefit 5: No Dangerous Chemicals
If LEDs break, it’s no problem, they contain no harmful chemicals and do not emit UV radiation because they are not coated in chemicals to generate light like older bulbs. Older bulbs, especially more energy-efficient, older lighting such as CFL require immediate cleanup if broken due to the harmful chemicals within the bulbs.
Benefit 6: Better Light = Happier People
A study in the Journal of Circadian Rhythms found that brighter, more natural light led to increased focus and performance, as well as overall better mood for those who worked in such light, when compared to dimmer, more yellow light typically found in environments lit with fluorescent lighting. Other studies on this same subject most often result in similar findings. People who work in a more natural daylight environment, such as those lit by LED lighting, experience better overall quality of life, leading to enhanced mood and higher productivity.
Benefit 7: Excellent ROI Allows Operational Budget Adjustments
The long-term cost savings created through converting to LED are often used by our customers to help offset the costs of installing the SmartBoot system in their facilities. Both our system and LED conversion require an upfront investment, but through affordable financing combined with the long-term energy savings, most of our customers are able to achieve a two to three year financial ROI in which their SmartBoot system payment and energy savings offset each other, so there are no budget changes required, operational spending simply shifts toward making a monthly finance payment rather than paying the portion of your energy bill reduced through LED conversion. This is especially effective for public institutions such as schools that are able to apply for grants. When most, or all, of the SmartBoot system is covered through grants, the cost-savings of LED lighting are experienced almost immediately.
At The LockOut Company, we believe that LED lighting is a vital piece of what we offer our customers, and we hope that, regardless of whether an organization decides to work with us or not, everyone begins to analyze the benefits of switching from their existing lighting systems to be more cost-effective, energy-efficient, and better for our environment.
