HIGH TIME FOR A CHANGE IN HIGH-BAY LIGHTING
They number in the millions, lighting everything from our indoor gymnasiums, swimming pools and basketball courts to our supermarkets, manufacturing plants, industrial complexes and subway concourses. They are the high-bay fixtures, mounted 15 feet or higher above the floor.
But while high-bay fixtures may be everywhere, they are not all the same.
Consider this: if you convert a 400-watt metal halide to a 324-watt fluorescent high-bay fixture, it produces energy savings of about 19%. Converting the same metal halide fixture to an LED high-bay fixture can generate energy savings of 65% or more, while also giving you vastly better lighting quality and control.
So why would anyone waste significant dollars and accept sub-optimal lighting instead of switching to LED high-bay fixtures? It’s a good question.
Metal halide fixtures have been the mainstay of high-bay lighting. They cost less and produce a bright, white light with fairly good color rendering. But their service life, light output and efficacy severely degrade over time, making them much less economical than today’s best LED alternatives.
Fluorescent high-bay fixtures have also become popular in recent decades, providing good color rendering and much better lifetime lumen maintenance than metal halide fixtures. But even the best offer only modest improvements.
Then there’s LED. On appearance only, LED high-bay fixtures may not look like a 50-year leap in technology. Many have the same familiar inverted cup shape and hang overhead, making light.
That’s where the resemblance ends.
LEDs use much less power to create a lumen of light, and that light is more easily controlled. Their useful life is measured in decades and they require little if any maintenance. Plus, like the smartphone in your pocket, an LED chip provides a ready-made platform for any number of environmental sensors, as well as Wi-Fi and networking capabilities.
