Commercial Lighting
For many companies, lighting accounts for more than half of their electricity consumption. Often, this lighting bill could be cut by at least 30 per cent by switching to energy-efficient lighting. These modern lighting systems also last longer (reducing maintenance costs) and produce superior light and less heat (reducing summer cooling costs). What kind of commercial energy-efficient lighting is available?There's a wide range of products. T8 and T5 fluorescent systems are now widely used for general commercial lighting and compact fluorescent lights for task and hallway lighting. Energy-efficient metal halide lights - producing high-output "white" light - and high-pressure sodium lights - primarily for parking lot and other exterior applications - are also available. Our old T12 fluorescent lights are still operating well. What's wrong with keeping them?Traditional T12s have magnetic ballasts, which produce much less light per watt than modern electronic ballasts, meaning they're significantly less energy efficient. Indeed, under new federal regulations, T12 magnetic ballasts are no longer available for new fixtures and, by 2010, will no longer be available for retrofitting existing fixtures. In other words, these systems will be obsolete in a few years. Can't we just switch to T12 electronic ballasts?You can, but they're more costly, less reliable and less energy efficient than T8 magnetic ballasts. What's the advantage of T8 fluorescent systems?T8s are slim fluorescent lamps that produce substantially more light per watt than T12 tubes - they're 20 to 30 per cent more energy efficient - while providing quiet, flicker-free lighting. T8s also hold their light longer, still producing 90 per cent of their original output after 8,000 hours, which is about 40 per cent of their lifespan. Because T8s share the same tube length and pin configuration as T12 tubes, it's a relatively easy upgrade, using the existing T12 layout. T8s can also be housed in high-performance fixtures, which direct more light downward, allowing three tubes to produce the same lighting as four in a conventional fixture; this can increase energy efficiency by an additional 25 per cent. As well, dimmer switches can be used with many of these modern lights, providing further energy savings. What about T5 fluorescent systems?T5s are the next generation of commercial fluorescent lighting. They are up to 40 per cent smaller than other fluorescent systems (the tubes are 5/8ths of an inch in diameter), allowing them to fit in smaller fixtures and offering more design flexibility. They offer better colour rendition, more directed and evenly-distributed light, and more light per watts than both T12s and T8s. Their light levels last longer, too; they still produce 95 of their original output after 8,000 hours. So should we just go straight to a T5 system?If you're still using T12 fluorescent lights, it probably makes sense to switch straight to T5s. But if you already have T8s, it may not be worth switching, at least from a financial perspective. For one thing, the cost of upgrading to T5s is higher because the smaller T5 lamps and fixtures won't fit existing layouts, specific T5 electronic ballasts are required and T5 tubes are more expensive than their T8 counterparts. Standard T5 lamps are also only marginally more energy efficient than T8 lamps, although newer high-output T5 lamps produce twice as much light, allowing fewer lamps to be used in places where brighter light is required. What else can we do to cut our commercial lighting bill?
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