As lighting professionals, we truly live in one of the most exciting times for lighting. Energy efficient lighting has taken many great leaps forward in the last few years, consistently outperforming itself year after year, with products getting better and better and providing consistent, energy-saving light for all different types of applications.

No matter what type of business you are in - from warehouse operations to running a restaurant - there is probably an exciting new energy efficient lighting product that will work perfectly for you. Let’s just say you need a more energy efficient way to light the beer cooler at the bar: There’s a large number of great LED cooler, fridge, and freezer lighting products that will work perfectly for your business. 

Or maybe you’re in need of lighting for a large warehouse or manufacturing facility, spaces that can be a huge energy suck on your business’ finances. The LED high bay lights that are available today are truly incredible, allowing you to light huge spaces with a fraction of the energy costs.

Energy efficient lighting is important in so many different ways. From saving money on energy usage, to lowering your impact on the environment and reducing your maintenance costs, there are a handful of reasons to start investing in energy efficient lighting today.

Here are just a few of the reasons energy efficient lighting is important, and why you should consider making the switch as soon as possible.

Energy Efficient Lighting Is The Best Way To Save Money

The first reason is saving money. When it comes to lighting, we want to save as much money on the energy we use to light our spaces, from huge warehouses to residential living rooms. Many people are skeptical about how much energy efficient lighting can really save them, which is why we’re here to outline just how important energy efficient lighting is for saving money.

It is true that many energy efficient lights have a higher upfront cost than traditional lighting fixtures and bulbs. In general, a new LED bulb will cost more than an incandescent bulb for the same application. If this is the only factor you’re thinking about when buying lighting, then you’re being shortsighted when it comes to saving money.

The truth is that the upfront cost of lighting is a pretty small factor when it comes to saving money on your lighting costs. Energy efficient lights like LEDs will end up saving you huge amounts of money down the line. This is due to the fact that LED lights use a lot less energy to produce the same amount of light as a comparable incandescent light. LEDs also consistently outperform the onetime king of energy efficient lighting: the fluorescent light.

LEDs will also save you money because they have incredibly long lifespans. LED products have life spans ranging from 50,000 to 100,000 hours, and in some cases last even longer than that. That means that you’ll have to buy new fixtures less to replace your dead lights, and will also avoid the costs of paying people to replace these lights, especially important in hard to reach places like high bay warehouses.

To better understand how much money energy efficient lighting can save you, you can take a closer look at the performance of different lighting technologies. The website The Simple Dollar recently did a comparison between incandescent, fluorescent, and LED technology, calculating the price of operating each bulb for 25,000 hours.

The study found that at a cost of $0.12 per kWh (kilowatt hour), the incandescent bulb cost $180 dollars to operate. The fluorescent, on the other hand, cost $42 to operate during that time span. Even more efficient was the LED, which cost a low $30 to run for 25,000 hours. That’s a saving of $150 for just one bulb. 

Considering you can replace all your bulbs in your home or business with LED technology, you can save huge amounts of money by making the switch to energy efficient lighting.

Energy Efficient Lighting Is Better For The Environment

Reducing your energy use is reducing your impact on the environment. It’s as simple as that. Whether or not you have environmental concerns, energy efficient lighting has a much lower impact on the world’s energy usage. If everyone switched to LED in the United States, for example, we could reduce our energy use by 30-40% based on some estimates.

That number is actually a low estimate in some contexts. LEDs are generally 80% to 85% more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs. If you’re doing a retrofit or complete LED replacement in your home or business, you’re making a huge positive impact on the environment, and your finances.

Energy Efficient Lighting Reduces Maintenance Costs

One of the byproducts of switching to LED technology is the reduced maintenance you’ll have to do on your lighting system. Along with providing you with lower energy usage, these lights are much more reliable than their incandescent and fluorescent predecessors.  What this means is that you’ll spend a lot less time and energy on replacing and up keeping these lights.

Just imagine a warehouse that has lights hung high up on the ceiling. Any time a light goes out, you have to pay someone to get up there and replace the bulb. That person could be doing something else much more important, like operating or repairing equipment essential to your business operations.

Many LED products last up to 100,000 hours, which is an incredibly long time when compared to traditional lights. You’ll barely have to think about replacing your lights, as even the most intensely used lights will last for years on end.

More Information on Energy Efficient Lights

You can access a step-by-step Guide to Energy Efficiency from Shine Retrofits that will help you identify spaces where you can invest in new technology to save money and improve your energy efficiency. The guide provides an infographic with detailed steps that will help you do an energy audit, pinpointed the areas in your home or business where energy efficient products can make the biggest impact.

Consider switching to energy efficient products as soon as you can! Our lighting experts at Shine Retrofits are here to help you. We have an extensive list of retrofit kits, LED bulbs, and LED light fixtures available for purchase through our website, so take a look at around and see if one of our products will work for your space.

If you have any questions about our catalog of energy efficient products, or about which lighting products will work for your project, our team of lighting experts are standing by to guide you. Call 1-800-983-1315 anytime Monday through Friday, from 6am to 6pm Mountain Standard Time, for help getting started with your LED retrofit today. We can’t wait to hear from you!