These days technology is changing almost faster than you can blink and the world of lighting is no different. LED temporary lighting is the new frenzy, but what are the benefits and how do they apply to users of temporary job site lighting?
Typically LED lighting is replacing some form of lighting with a glass envelope and possibly a fragile filament, such as fluorescent, incandescent, or high intensity discharge (HID). By eliminating these fragile components, LED lighting offers users a more robust solution for industrial work lights. This is key for users of temporary jobsite lighting, where lights are subjected to a lot of abuse from disassembly, transportation and reassembly.
LED lighting has the benefit of offering a long life span, typically 25,000 hours or more. Compared to incandescent, which even heavy duty models are often rated at 10,000 hours or less, LEDs can offer users the best return on investment even before their lower power consumption is factored in!
Lower power consumption means lower voltages, lower currents, or both. This offers to the end user:
LEDs use less power, and less power means lower current. For users of temporary job site lighting, this is key. Often temporary work lights are used in the format of long strings, such as what is used during tunnel construction. Over these long strings voltage loss due to the resistance to the wire can be substantial. To compensate heavy gauge lower resistance cable is used. This lower current draw allows a lighter gauge cable to be used, which to the end user means lower cost. Alternatively, LED lighting allows much longer strings than were previously available.
Less power also means that you can run LEDs at lower voltage (if you are using a light designed for this type of application), meaning that high lumen outputs are now available to users who have low voltage requirements. Incandescent offerings have been available for low voltage users for a long time, but their high power consumption provides a significant disadvantage at these low voltages.
High power at low voltages means high current, and high current means high voltage drops over long cable lengths. In this past low voltage users had to compensate by using fewer bulbs or shorter strings than their higher voltage counterparts. No longer! Now low voltage users can opt for a temporary lighting solution in a LED. These LED can provide light outputs and string lengths that are competitive with their high voltage incandescent equivalents.
Lower wattage means fewer kilowatt hours on your bill. A 100 watt incandescent uses just that, 100 watts. A typical 100 watt LED equivalent uses 15 watts.
For a 1000 foot string with bulbs every ten feet and an electricity cost of $0.07 per kilowatt hour, the LED saves the end user $0.70 per hour. Over the 25,000 hour life span of the bulb that means a savings of $17,500!
There are many advantages to using LED lighting as your temporary job site lighting provider. Keeping up with the trends can allow your job site to get the job done well and do it safely.