Establishing a Method to Avoid Madness

There are many ways to evaluate LED lighting before plunging into a major purchase. The first rule of thumb is ALWAYS test a fixture before deploying a large quantity. And, it’s a good idea to have a pilot methodology that is bullet-proof so you can show exactly why switching to LED lighting makes good business sense.

Start by establishing a minimum set of requirements for any LED fixture you will accept for evaluation. Here’s a link to a sample minimum set of requirements the City of Los Angeles has used for its LED street lighting trials: http://www.lacity.org/bsl/LEDMinimumRequirements.htm

With the knowledge that there are MANY bad LED lighting products on the market today, you’ll want to arm yourself with a series of questions to be asked of every vendor whose fixtures are to be considered. You can find the 12 Questions to Ask Every LED Vendor on the LED City web site at: www.ledcity.com/questions.htm. It’s not a fool-proof system but it can help you quickly weed out the potentially really bad lights or sales people.

In most cases, we recommend that cities contact several makers of the types of LED lights they seek to evaluate. A fair amount of evaluation can be done before a single light is installed. Start by contacting each vendor for product specifications and pricing. Most vendors will provide assistance in the form of a calculator that can fairly quickly and easily predict energy savings and energy and maintenance cost savings.

The LED City® program can provide a list of vendors broken out by lighting category as a starting point for gathering information. You can Google for LED lighting—I think something’s missing here and the second word gets out that your city is considering LED lighting, there will be plenty of sales people asking for an opportunity to present their LED lighting products.

Purchase samples of the fixtures that show the most promise for the selected project. It’s best to purchase sample units, one to three or so of each fixture to be evaluated, on the open market. That ensures they are commercially and readily available. There are far too many LED light fixtures available for evaluations that are not actually available for purchase.

Some vendors are producing what are sometimes called “hero” fixtures in tiny quantities expressly for evaluations. These fixtures can perform far better than fixtures that can be produced in mass quantities. They are built with extra care and only the best components, and may not be representative of the performance and durability of the next thousand fixtures you purchase. To be sure you can get the fixtures in a timely manner and that they provide a fair approximation for the performance you can expect later on, buy them in the natural procurement process you would use to purchase in large quantities.

Here’s where the fun starts. Where do you put the lights?  Anchorage put a couple of each trial light in different locations around the city. Ann Arbor and Chapel Hill chose to replace the fixtures on a bustling city block. Boston is evaluating seven different lights by installing three of each, for a total of 21 lights spanning one side of a city park. Indian Wells chose to replace all six-inch can lights throughout its facilities.

All of these cities chose high visibility areas with the intention to get the attention of citizens and officials and to allow for feedback from the broadest population mix.

Once the lights are in place it’s time to check the facts:

• Check the amount of electricity actually being used by the light(s). Hopefully, your utilities provider will assist with validating the energy savings for each light in the evaluation.
• Check the light output and whether the light is landing where it is needed. LED lighting typically measures around 10 percent less light on surfaces but it appears brighter. The human response to LED lighting is different than our response to traditional light sources. Also, LED lighting is a tiny, directional light source so the light can be aimed or guided to fall exactly where it should. Unlike traditional light sources with unidirectional output – light going in all directions and therefore producing a lot of wasted lumens – LED lighting can be spread more evenly and therefore fewer lumens can be used more effectively.
• Do the users of this new light like it? Here’s where you find out if the lights work well for your citizens and officials. Is the area well lit? Do they feel visibility is enhanced with the new lights? Is the feeling of safety enhanced?
• Are you saving at least 50 percent on energy? If not, why? Consider adding occupancy sensors or dimmers for even better energy savings and fixture lifetimes.

Now’s the time to start calculating the total cost of ownership of LED lighting. Consider the cost of switching to LED lighting over the full rated lifetime of the fixtures. Factors in this calculation are:

• The difference in initial purchase cost of the LED lights versus the traditional light source that would be used for this installation. LED lights are almost always more expensive.
• The amount of money that could be saved due to reduced energy use for the full lifetime of the fixtures. We chose 15 years for the example that follows.
• The amount of money that won’t be spent maintaining the LED fixtures. Traditional fixture maintenance includes many bulb/ballast replacements, which includes the cost of the new parts, labor costs and costs associated with any specialized equipment/labor needed to facilitate maintenance such as lifts, supply trucks or police assistance in redirecting traffic.
• Calculate the year in which the initial cost of the LEDs is overcome by the savings and then start adding up the savings over the remaining years of life for what could be a nice large number showing that it is a no-brainer to switch to LED lighting.

Total cost of ownership sample:

• Initiate cost is $262,000 higher for the LED fixtures.
• The LED lights can save $574,335 in electricity costs over the 15-year lifetime of the fixtures.
• Maintenance costs can be reduced by $323,213 over the 15-year lifetime of the fixtures.

Therefore, the initial payback is a little over three years and the LED lights can save $635,548 over the 15-year lifetime.