What is retrofit lighting? Retrofitting your facility means you are adding a new technological component that was not there originally; replacing old technology with brand new technology. For example, retrofitting within the topic of lighting is replacing old traditional light bulbs, with new LED lightbulbs, which is incredible beneficial for any company or individual to do. While the usual lightbulb produces a dim yellow glow, these new LED lights primarily produce a bright neutral tone, which generally gives off more light and brightens a space, making it look a lot more modern.
In terms of our electrical maintenance at Sowga, we advise LED lighting upgrades to utilise this replacement of a lighting within our services as we believe this to be an important step towards energy management and innovation Considering LEDs are constantly developing and smart technology is being paired with it, this could lead to even more energy efficient ways they can be used within commercial buildings.
For example, dimming or colour changing abilities will enable commercial buildings to control how bright their light output is, which will in turn save on energy bills and the comfortability of the space. Whereas the colour of the lighting may benefit how people view a space. Bright, neutral, warm light benefits workers as it modernises a work environment and promotes a positive outlook. While colder colours may decrease effectiveness and efficiency of workers as it may affect their mood.
The key benefits of swapping out old lighting systems for new and improved. The first and most important is that LED lights are far more efficient in light quality, energy consumption and lifespan.
When it comes to the price of an LED light bulb compared to a traditional filament light bulb, a traditional would cost around £1.29, whereas an LED would be around £5.40. Which at first may seem like a huge difference, but it is actually justified by its lifespan. A filament bulb only lasts approximately 1,000 hours, yet an LED bulb can last as much as 20,000 hours. This therefore means 1 LED bulb's lifespan is the equivalent of 20 filament bulbs.
With energy efficiency being of concern, with the current energy bill crisis in the UK, this is now a very prominent thought amongst homeowners, businesses and other property owners. In examples, a 5 watt LED bulb does the same job as a 40 watt filament bulb. With an energy rate of £0.19 per kWh (kilowatt-hour), an LED light bulb would cost £19 over the course of its lifetime. While the filament light bulb, would cost a whopping £152 over the exact same period of time.