How to choose your lighting
Reducing your consumption and lowering your maintenance costs is easy!
Lamps on the industrial market:
- Incandescent lamps: energy-intensive and inefficient, they have almost disappeared from the industrial market.
- Compact fluorescent lamps: also called low-energy lamps (CFL or LBC), and fluorescent tubes. These products, mostly classified as A on the energy label, are still very widespread for elongated luminaires (tubes and linear) as well as emergency lighting.
- Halogen, metal halide halogen and high pressure sodium vapour lamps classified as C or D. These lamps, mainly used for high power projectors, are gradually being replaced by LEDs due to their high consumption and maintenance costs.
- Light-emitting diodes or LEDs: most often classified as A+, these new generation lights are becoming more widespread in industry because they allow for better control of electricity consumption and improvement of the energy efficiency of installations.
You thought Watts, switch to lumens!
To choose an incandescent lamp, you used its power consumption, expressed in watts (W). The comparison is complicated with more efficient lamps whose luminous efficacy changes with the power. The increase in the quantity of light produced is no longer directly proportional to the increase in power.
It is more judicious to be guided by the luminous flux emitted by a lamp, expressed in lumens (see table) or by the luminous efficacy, in lumens per watt (the greater the luminous efficacy, the more light the lamp emits for the same electrical consumption).
Luminous efficiency of different types of lamps:
Luminous flux equivalent to the power of an incandescent lamp
To optimize the use of light in your installations and benefit from the best possible luminous efficiency, good usage practices must be respected:
- All existing luminaires, including “halogens”, can be equipped with a replacement lamp from among the models of compact fluorescent lamps or LED lamps;
- Avoid indirect lighting fixtures (whose light is reflected on the walls or ceiling) and beams. For fixtures equipped with LED lamps, you should favor those whose light source (the LED) is not directly visible by choosing fixtures equipped with diffusing materials (globe, bowl, etc.) made of glass (see the section "how to choose your LED lighting?")
Why LED?
LED lamps are becoming more widespread in the industrial lighting market LED technology continues to progress: LED performance doubles every 2 years and prices decrease by 20% each year. The advantages:
- Unparalleled lifespan: the lifespan of LED lamps is much longer than that of other technologies: up to 100,000 hours (in the laboratory), 40,000 hours on the market (i.e. several decades of use) compared to 1,000 hours for incandescent lamps, 2,000 hours for halogen lamps and 10,000 hours for fluorescent lamps. As a result, the purchase and replacement of an LED lamp is less frequent, which improves the profitability of the investment.
- Good energy efficiency with significant potential for improvement While an isolated LED displays very good energy efficiency (around 150 lm/W and up to 220 lm/W for the most efficient), an LED lamp offers an efficiency of between 40 and 80 lumens per watt. This drop in efficiency is notably linked to the heat produced by the diodes attached to the lamp. Thus, the LED lamps currently on the market generally have a significantly higher energy efficiency than conventional lamps: 70 lumen/W for fluorescent lamps and only 16 lumen/W for incandescent lamps. In addition, technological developments should make it possible to improve the efficiency of LED lamps for the general public by increasing it to around 100 lm/W. "Super bright" LEDs can already, in the laboratory, achieve an energy efficiency of up to 300 lm/W! This means that in the long term we will be able to have lamps that consume less than 4 watts and that light up like a 75-watt incandescent lamp.
- Instant maximum illumination: LED bulbs reach maximum brightness as soon as they are switched on. In fact, LED sources allow frequent switching on and off cycles. They emit the desired luminous flux instantly, without any ramp-up, which can be advantageous for specific applications such as passageways.
- Compact lamps: the compactness of LEDs makes them very interesting for replacing sources embedded in false ceilings or for difficult access such as great heights (cranes, platforms, warehouses, street lamps). LED modules, directly installed in a luminaire and which can integrate control electronics, facilitate the implementation of lighting management solutions such as presence detection or variation according to daylight.
- LEDs operate at very low voltage and even at low temperatures, which can be an advantage for electrical safety in the building. With a heating rate of only 32°C, LEDs do not heat up as much as incandescent lamps (150°C) and fluorescent lamps (70°C). They are insensitive to shocks, which makes them more robust than other lighting sources. Colored LEDs can be used for light effects without using a filter. Finally, LEDs do not contain mercury and are largely recyclable as non-hazardous waste (unlike fluorescent lamps).
How to choose your LED lighting?
You thought Watts, switch to lumens!
There are several types of SMD LEDs offering very different powers. The SMD LED has been around for many years but due to a rather complex soldering procedure it is mainly reserved for industrial applications that require a power
LED bulbs equipped with High Power LEDs
This power LED technology is evolving and gaining more and more ground in the industry because these are the LEDs that offer the most light relative to the emitting surface of the LED.
LED bulbs equipped with COB LEDs
This new generation of LEDs is increasingly used in industrial environments. COB LEDs are small light chips arranged side by side to form a larger LED. They have the same advantages as High Power LEDs but offer greater light output.
Our advice:
- Opt for SMD LED bulbs if you want to get perfect power over a wide angle
- Choose High Power LED bulbs if you want to achieve a beam effect
- Choose COB-equipped LED bulbs for high-power projectors and high heights>
Be careful, the angle is important. The lower the angle, the more you will have a beam effect. This beam effect can have a little design side if correctly used like along a wall for example but it is totally unsuitable for main lighting.