Lighting your factory with LED - take care to get a great result

“A no-brainer” stated the Finance Director, delighted at his return on investment as he installs new lights that use 66% less energy and require no maintenance for a promised 10 years. “ And it reduces our CRC charge, shows how green we are and the lighting cost will be relatively stable over the next ten years “. Enthusiastic LED lighting salesman is delighted. At £350 each, this is a valuable sale.

Two months earlier he had been approached by an independent consultant who had told him lots about LEDs – and had recommended an English manufacturer of LED lighting for his factory. Delighted, the Finance Director had ordered 20 units of the English lights every month.

But the Enthusiastic LED lighting salesman had shown him a new light that was £150 cheaper and appeared to do the same job. The Financial Director cancelled the order with the English manufacturer and asked Enthusiastic LED salesman to supply 20 units of the new, cheaper Chinese lights every month.

A month after these new lights had been installed the English manufacturer received a call. “These new lights appeared every bit as bright as yours, but six of the initial 20 have already failed and they are already less bright than they were when installed. I have taken them all out and we are fighting with the supplier over the credit now due. Please can we get back to our original deal.”

This true story illustrates the challenges in selecting the right LED light for your task. Typically a customer will respond positively to the initial approach to reduce the energy consumption with LED. The promise of savings is so attractive and the manufacturer’s presentation so effective it is difficult to see what could possibly go wrong.

The truth is that LED is a largely unregulated technology. The lighting design community is highly cynical of the claims made by even the most familiar household names, who peddle the phrase “equivalent to 50W” without any qualification of that statement and many major companies are regretting their rush to adopt a technology which leaves them with half the light they had before, despite a significant investment.

Now the Finance Director is delighted. He has found the right light to last for 10 years. But he found out that choosing the right LED lighting is complex. The key steps were not only to establish how much light they needed, how much energy would be required to supply that light efficiently (because he thought he’d understood that bit), but also to really understand how long the lights would remain at full brightness. Once these issues have been defined, the key questions are: (1) can the manufacturer/supplier be trusted to supply accurate data and (2) what would happen if anything goes wrong ?

84 x £350 is a lot of money to throw away if the supplier will not support you. Spending 84 x £500 is well worth it if you have a payback in less than two years and you can actually drive to the English factory if problems do arise as far as 7 years out.

LED provides the right light for the long term BUT choose with care.

Ian Peter MacDonald - MacDonald Tait Light - info@macdonaldtait.com- 01603 788448

Missing data = Obfuscation ?

As a young pigtailed ‘un I had a pretty clear understanding that physics and chemistry were all about real true things. Things that could be measured, monitored and tested. Certainly science lessons with Mrs Barry and Mrs Brandt didn’t allow for much creative interpretation. Turns out that there are many ways to be creative with measuring, monitoring and testing. And one of the easiest ways is by simply not including data.

My train of thought was sharpened by a recent editorial in the BMJ “Missing Clinical Trial Data” (BMJ 2012; 344: d8158). It appears some drug trials are overlooked, especially where the results don’t entirely show the latest groovy drug in best light. Unpublished evidence; an absence of data; failure to ensure proper regulation and registration of clinical trials – a catalogue of bad science to make Mrs Barry quite upset.

In LED lighting the outcome of trial and tests may not be as life threatening – but the consequences of not having clear regulation, consistency of product specification and obfuscation leads to very muddy waters.

Let’s try beam angle, for example.  Quite often manufacturers advertise the lumen output for a range of lights without clearly indicating that they are referring to the lumen output from the model with the narrowest beam. Wider beam – lower lux at 2m compared to a more narrow beam can all too often be the unstated case. Another popular confusion is created by describing light output in lumens for some products and candelas for others.  While there may well be historic reasons for this, it doesn’t help the customer.

And, while I’m on a roll, there’s another couple of areas rich in obfuscation. First up is lumen output and delivered lumens. Even in the Old Testament they didn’t condone hiding lights under bushels – and still most specifications don’t differentiate between lumen output from the light unit and lumens delivered. Finally there’s energy consumption. I anticipate that this is an area that we will be coming back to again in the future. LED power consumption is so very much less than traditional lighting that people don’t yet much question the amount of energy used for the light engine, or the entire system Wattage.

For professional specifiers and designers this stuff is old hat – and questions keep being asked of the manufacturers until the “apples and pears” conundrum as described by CELMA is untangled.

However, if LED technology is genuinely to be embraced by all the different kinds of people that buy lamps we need to be doing better than this.

Perhaps the industry could learn something from the wine producers and merchants. Over the years they have developed clear labelling regulations.  It is compulsory for each bottle to clearly show country and appellation of origin, bottle and alcohol content, name and address of producer/brand owner. Optionally you could mention the grape variety. People like wine and, over and beyond the whole wine snob thing, they know what they are getting and what it is worth.

Less high – faluting as an example might be Ronseal – “IT DOES WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN”. That’s what lighting packaging should deliver – if we can all just agree on what the criteria should be....

Looking into 2012...

What  can we expect in 2012 ? Looking deep into our crystal ball we see several developments both in how the customer responds to the technology and how the technology itself advances.

1)       The market/consumer will become more discerning as they hear more horror stories and yet witness good new projects. The efforts of the Lighting Association to police supplier’s data should soon begin to make an impact.

2)       Customers commissioning new buildings will demand LED lighting as they see good examples.

3)        The costs will not go down in 2012, but lower cost products will come into the market. These should be judged with care and we must rely on third party test data and not that from the manufacturers.

4)       The introduction of advanced technologies such as Chromawhite from Photonstar will show the way to a completely new LED solution. These chips can be tuned to colour temperature and will automatically adjust colour temperature and output as the product ages. These will offer unprecedented stability over the long term.

5)       The range of tasks which can be covered well by LED will continue to develop. Today we can happily replace all low and Hi-bay with LED as well as all standard downlight tasks in home, office, restaurant and shop. By the end of 2012, we shall be replacing 600 x 600 layins as standard.

6)       Many of the best LED manufacturers in the world come from the UK. Buying effective LEDs will not only enhance your project but will reduce the carbon impact of supplying lighting and will continue to create new jobs in Britain.

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?

A cautionary tale from LED land

Once upon a time there was a young property investor who decided to build a hotel. His hotel was in a busy, business area near London. He wanted it to be very fine and worked with a big hotel chain to design it to meet all their standards. But he wanted more than that; he wanted his hotel to use LED lighting technology. He loved the idea of low energy bills and he envisioned some really 21^st century lighting effects in his new hotel. But he knew it was a complicated thing to do – and he respected the challenges new technologies could bring – so he found a special wizard (LED consultant) and shared his idea.

“We can do this, and we can do it well” said his wizard, “here is a design, and a plan and list of exactly the right lights to achieve your dream”.

“Fabulous”, said the young man, “let me show it to the project management company”.

So the project management company looked at the plans and said “We need more: more graphs, and more pictures and more meetings”.

They had more meetings and looked at CAD models of the lights and talked about dimming protocols. And then one day, co-incidentally, they went bust and vanished.

The young man found another project management company. He introduced his LED wizard to them and showed them the design and the plan and the specifications.

“Oooh!” said the new company, sucking their teeth, “we need even more details and meetings and designs.” Which the wizard and the young man very politely provided.

And  then everything went silent.

The LED wizard was worried. The young man’s dream for his lights was not going to be realised in time if they didn’t order the lights before the building was finished. So he rang and emailed the new project management company.

Then one day the new project managers said “Look how clever we are: we have found lights just like the ones you told us about – but they cost much, much less”.

“Are they really the same?” said the wizard – “I’d like to see them.”

But the man who had made the new lights got very angry “ARE YOU CALLING MY LIGHTS RUBBISH?” he shouted, “MY LAWYERS WILL BE CALLING YOU.”

The LED consultant was a brave soul and gently suggested that the young man, the project managers, the designer, the new light supplier and anyone else interested should all get together and turn on the lights to see what they were actually like.

So everyone met in the half-built hotel and they turned on the lights: they looked at the new lights and they looked at the lights originally specified. There was silence.

The project management people said “Wow! We didn’t realise that despite having the same wattage and lumen output the difference between two LEDs could be so big. The beam angle is different, the colour is different, the light temperature is different, the fall of light on the floor is different and they have different life expectations.”

“ARE YOU CALLING MY LIGHTS RUBBISH?” shouted the angry man who had made the new lights.”MY LAWYERS WILL BE CALLING YOU”.

“Well, no,” said everyone, “but we can all see that they will not deliver the design as specified and don’t even offer a close compromise. The young man – who ultimately pays for all of this – will not be getting what he wanted.”

And between each other they wrote many emails blaming and shaming and worrying because they had already ordered masses of the wrong lights.

In other stories someone would appear now with a wand, or a horse or, even a princess – but in our story we still don’t know whether the dimming protocol will work with the LEDs chosen in error – let alone if the young man will get to have his vision realised... another chapter to follow...

LEDs – anticipating the pitfalls and identifying the risks

LED lighting remains unregulated “Wild West” technology with great potential but some enormous risks.

These were poor quality LED’s that had to be taken out of a misguided hotel recently. This is one of three boxes!

Risks:

·         Buying LEDs that fail

·         Buying LEDs from specs and not witnessing the light

·         or change colour after a little use,

·         or start failing because the dimmers are neither compatible or dim

·         or the replacements are not be the same as the original batch

·         or that don’t do what the designer specified

·         or that don’t send out the right colour of light

You cannot send them back because you do not “like” them and expect a refund.

The failure of a light to deliver to the specification may also not be immediately apparent unless every detail is investigated.

This designer specified downlights with a medium beam and lumen output of 600 Lm. The contractor went for a cheaper model which purported to have the same lumen output and beam angle. Unfortunately this was being delivered at the expense of the beam angle (which was much narrower than claimed) The result is this patchy, mottled effect on the floor – not what the designer or client wants to see at all.

How then to avoid the pitfalls?

·         Start with a lighting design that suits the technology.

·         Model the lighting levels to illustrate where the light will go and how good is the light throw

·         Specify lights that you trust will deliver the light for a guaranteed period

·         Ensure trace-ability in the event of failure

·         Establish what are the options at end of life

·         Check that every component of the light will deliver every aspect of the design to the required level. Where you are considering between two apparently identical lights TURN THEM ON and then see how they perform.

If you do not have access to this expertise, use an expert LED specifier and also use an LED experienced electrician. Many claim experience in this technology, few genuinely grasp the issues. Any investment in LED involves a great deal of money. Take care.

Buy the right effective LEDs and you have great lighting for a generation using a fraction of historic energy.

Ian Peter MacDonald  -                MacDonald Tait Light -                November 2011 -  ianpeter@macdonaldtait.com

Select LED lighting

When Edison approached his customers with the first lightbulb, did they go to their existing candle and gas fitting suppliers to ask them how to judge that bulb ?

LED lighting is the current buzzword for an easy route to reducing energy. Simply change your light bulb and you will save energy. The mantra is commonly accepted and household, builders and commercial enterprises are all rushing to make that change.

And yet this is completely unregulated technology. How do the consumers know what to buy ? The product claims “equivalent to 50W halogen downlight, lasts for 50,000 hours, guaranteed for 5 years”.  Let us examine these claims:

1)      Equivalent to 50W halogen. In what respects ? It may mean that the fitting suits your existing 50W fitting. Does it mean that the light output is the same ? Light output is  defined in lumens and a 50W halogen light generates over 800 Lumens. There is not one single LED lamp which generates 800 Lumens. Does it mean that it is a familiar warm light which dims to a satisfying orange glow ? A 50W halogen has a colour temperature of around 2600Kelvin which warms up to around 2200K at a low dim level. No LED lamp on the market today can emulate this. There are LED lights which can achieve a genuine equivalence to a 50W halogen but they are specialist products.

2)      Lasts for 50,000 hours. An LED can last for 50,000 hours - ie around 8 years with the lights on all of the time, but how much light is generated at 50,000 hours and what colour is it ? Unless you know exactly the testing conditions and the anticipated Lumen output reduction rate, unless you understand the heat dissipation mechanism and the anticipated catastrophic  failure rate your LED lights will be a range of different colours and really rather dull in 50,000 hours.

3)      Guaranteed for 5 years.(Some manufacturers claim 10 years). Guaranteed to do what in ten years ? Yes they will probably be on, but how do you assess what is too dark or what colour shift is covered ? What will the manufacturer do when you call up and claim new fittings ? Even if they do replace them, how do you guarantee they are the same colour temperature, the same LED bin, the same light output and even the same bezel colour as the original. After all, replacing one will look rather odd against all the others unless you really have that answer.

The truth is that as in any ground changing technology there is a desperate fight as the established lighting suppliers, who have made their billions exploiting a technology created over a century ago, jostle with the young hi tech engineering  turks who really understand the technology, who push the envelope and who are genuinely offering a brighter, better world of light. We, the modest consumers are merely pawns in this battle.

This leaves the professionals in a bit of a jam. A builder or electrician is obliged to provide Part L2 compliant LED lighting. Supply inadequate LED lights and you get an unhappy customer, or the compliance officer will reject them and new lights will have to be sourced. Architects are constantly swamped with handsome brochures showing handsome LED light fittings. They cost a fortune, yet how does that architect judge how much light, what colour they will be and what dimming system will work, as well as the issues of longevity and colour maintenance.

The light output from every single LED manufacturer is different. How do you know if that light will provide the light you need ?

So, if good LED lights do exist, where do you get them ? The answer is to employ a specialist lighting designer who will layout the lighting and define the exact LED light for that job. The responsibility is then on them to support the claims with proven tested criteria and to manage the guarantee. They can model the light levels and show you exactly what light you will get before you make any purchase. Yes there will be a slight cost - a lighting designer will cost around £400 a day, but that is small beer relative to choosing the wrong LED lights.

Ian Peter MacDonald - MacDonald Tait Light - ianpeter@macdonaldtait.com - 24^th October 2011