The benefits of LED lighting in commercial and light industrial applications are increasingly well known to both contractors/installers and their customers: lower energy costs, lower carbon footprint, better quality of light, longer life, and the ability to use lighting controls. Michael Morrison, managing director, Crescent Lighting, explains:
The good news is the above benefits are now combining with the arrival of a new generation of much higher quality retrofit LED HID and LED Fluorescent retrofit solutions. These are well-suited for use in a broad range of commercial lighting, re-lamping and energy performance applications including warehouses, factories, cold rooms, education and healthcare campuses, offices and municipal facilities, car parks, stations and depots.
This can help installers and contractors create profitable new business opportunities: On the one hand your customer will enjoy easy access to much more affordable LED while you open up immediate new business opportunities previously unavailable due to customer budget constraints. At the same time, you stand to make profitable future new business through re-lamping other areas further down the line, plus upgrades as LED technology advances.
How to sell
Here are some tips to help you counter the usual objections and keep the time to sale as short as possible:
“Why should I switch over to LEDs in the first place?”
By replacing the light source from HID or fluorescent to LED end users can massively improve quality of light while saving up to 70% in energy costs, with further savings when using controls and sensors. Additionally, by switching to LED from HID, there is in some cases a reduction in temperature per lamp of almost 50 Deg C which will ease the burden on the HVAC and the electrical system.
What about the labour costs?
Labour savings are significant when considering LED vs HID or fluorescent. To maintain the light levels as designed, HID lamps have a typical life of only two years with less than 50% of light output and high incidence of complete burnout. LED lamps, on the other hand, are rated for 50,000 hours and at that time they still have 70% of their light output, and they will not burn out. So, even with a conscientious re-lamping schedule, each HID/fluorescent lamp could require £200-£250 in labour to replace it over the life of the equivalent LED lamp.
“Isn’t LED high cost and disruptive to install” 
Not with retrofit LED as this is non-invasive and maintenance friendly – unlike the usual road to LED which requires site redesign and replacement fittings. This means there’s no need for up front capital construction budget and the reduction in labour costs means more rapid paybacks which can be within 12 months.
By not having to remove perfectly good and/or architecturally significant fittings, non-invasive retrofitting allows easy migration to LED as part of planned and budgeted maintenance programs. The LED lamps can be installed in phases while keeping a consistent “look” for the site. Disruption to business activities is negligible which ensures your customer’s productivity is maintained.
“What about retrofit quality issues / lack of choice?”
While in the past retrofit LED has suffered from poor quality imports and insufficient breadth in the ranges available, high quality, fully tested, certified and warrantied LED retrofit solutions are now increasingly available.
For example, on the fluorescent tube replacement side, Energy Focus has introduced a T8/T12 retrofit LED range in all popular sizes from 600 – 1800mm, and with efficacies up to 130 lm/W. There shouldn’t be any worries over durability as these solutions share the same robust qualities as the US Navy’s.
And for 150W to 250W HID, consider Light Efficient Design which has launched a retrofit LED HID range to fit in the most common types of fittings, replacing the old lamps with 35W to 100W LEDs.
“What about obsolescence?”
The usual worries over products going out of date as technology evolves can be forgotten. That’s because the simple phased re-lamping approach afforded by retrofit enables a straight forward and lower cost upgrade path to staying up to date with the latest LED solutions as they continue to evolve. And that’s got to be good news for you too!
Case Study
Crescent lights up e-cigarette firm
Vapouriz Electronic Cigarettes is set to make energy savings of around 45% while reducing maintenance costs and enjoying significant light quality improvements following the installation of retrofit LED Panels from Crescent Lighting.
Fast growing Vapouriz Electronic Cigarettes has recently completed a major refurbishment and enlargement of its Guildford premises. As part of this there was a requirement for upgrading the existing low efficiency fluorescent lighting with retrofit LED panels in various parts of the facility including the lab and production areas. While this included replacing a mix of 600mm x 1200mm recessed modulars and some surface battens, the project also called for the specification and installation of energy efficient lamping in the newly built main office area. On both counts lower maintenance and improved visual comfort were prerequisites.
Brett Horth, founder and managing director of Vapouriz said:
“LED lamping offers us significant energy and carbon savings as well as much reduced total cost of ownership through longer life and low maintenance requirements. We chose Crescent Lighting as their range of retrofit-able LED panel solutions enabled them to not only offer all of these advantages along with much improved light quality, but also the versatility to re-use our existing light fittings as and where appropriate, therefore keeping installation costs to the minimum. Their LED panel products were also equally suitable for using in the new main office area.”
The solution:
Crescent LED 36W panel solutions comprising 600mm x 600mm and 600mm x 1200mm sizes with 3400 and 4350lm output respectively at 5700K.
• Slim Design
• Efficient – 92% LOR
• CRI>80
• CE, WEEE, RoHS
• 5 year guarantee
• Easy to fit
• No Maintenance
For further information:
Crescent Lighting Ltd
Tel: 01635 878888
Email: [email protected]