Leisure Centre LED conundrum

Here’s a conundrum from a leisure centre near us in Norfolk. Really keen to be green, they first approached us in September 2010. All the key areas, such as the gym, reception area, corridors, gift shop and restaurant were lit with halogen dichroics – about 67 in total. After an audit of existing lights we came up with an LED scenario which would see their energy consumption reduced from approximately 6,293kWh pa to around 1,197kWh pa simply replacing these dichroics. A pretty decent energy reduction of over 80%.  This was achieved using mostly 7W LED downlights. And at that stage the capital investment, in lights alone, would have been about £2,400 – excluding installation costs.  Last year the management team were keen to retrofit with the LEDs, but simply didn’t have enough cash stashed away to do it.

Given the challenges of the current economic climate a cautious approach is quite understandable. The leisure team also anticipated that, following the usual pattern of fast moving technologies, LEDs would become cheaper. But, a year on from the original decision new features have become apparent.

Out of the potential variables of energy use (W’s), light output (lm’s) and unit cost (£’s) neither W’s nor £’s have actually changed much – the developments have been in light output. You get more bangs for your buck than you did a year ago. If you require a defined light output and supported longevity, the units themselves are not likely to come down in price until the component prices and production processes evolve.  

One might argue that the gamble taken by the leisure team simply hasn’t paid off: had they made the change back in September 2010 it might have taken 3 years to get to the point where the original investment had been paid back. It will still take 3 years, but they have now spent a whole year with energy costs much higher than they need be. Had they taken a bank loan (if they could get one!) at current interest rates it might have taken them a little over 3 years – but not that much. Given the cost issues it is unlikely that product prices will reduce dramatically in the next year, but electricity costs will continue to climb...

So, the conundrum is: when is the optimum moment for them to make the change?