LED lighting approaches mass affordability

RIDI, LED lighting

With LED lighting soon expected to become affordable for the masses, Mike Attard of RIDI in the UK takes a level-headed look towards the future of this energy- and cost-saving lighting.

With lighting being the largest energy user in commercial buildings, efficient lighting has become mandatory and not a desirable extra. The stands of the biggest names at Light & Building last year, and the pages of the lighting press across the world suggest that there is only one player in town when it comes to the future of lighting — LED.

Some estimates suggest that LED will have 80% of the market in 10 years, but the current landscape is still, for the most part, illuminated by traditional lamps and light sources. The great democratising tool for any new technology is affordability, and we are still not at the point where LED is affordable for the masses.

I have often likened this situation to the flat-screen TV market, which has transcended the space between exclusivity and ubiquity extremely quickly. When prices level out, expect to see rapid uptake of LED — but for the time being, there is still mileage left in T5 lamps.

So where are we now? LED technology is moving faster now then we have ever seen, with all manufacturers investing in R&D and production. There is a huge appetite for an uptake of LED technology and also the technical advances to support it. I believe that the rate of progress and development will start to plateau, with the emphasis then starting to switch to economies of scale and reducing costs.

LED adopters will benefit from the well documented savings, so specifying LED in a new build or retrofit must be seen as an investment. Initial outlay will almost certainly be above what you would spend on a T5 arrangement, but in terms of lifespan, maintenance, energy and money there are significant savings to be made.

The issue of price that still surrounds the technology has seen budget LED solutions emerge, but I would urge FMs and consultants to exercise caution.

If a budget solution means sacrificing quality, a new LED product will not deliver on its estimated 50 000 h lifespan, making it a false economy. Awareness of the provenance of your LED product is key. At our German factory we have invested in LED production facilities to allow us to enforce the same strict quality-control protocols as for our traditional luminaires.

A successful business model needs to include the production of LED luminaires, and we want to guarantee the quality of what we produce. Investing is the key word in justifying the initial outlay. Manufacturers producing boards in house can offer greater flexibility of design and customisation, as opposed to mass-produced boards from the far east.

Any spend on LED will ideally sit alongside an allocation for controls. LED lighting requires compatible control gear, so what appears to be a simple LED replacement tube might not be so straightforward. There are also issues around controlling LEDs. When it comes to dimming, incompatible control gear can cause flickering at lower levels.

RIDI, LED lighting
The making of LED lighting — Ridi’s new production facilities in Germany

Some see this as a teething issue that manufacturers can resolve, but, in some instances, this issue arises from designers and end-users specifying incompatible products. It is important to be aware of this issue to avoid the pitfalls. If you can source fittings and controls from the same supplier, there will be one point of call in the future for upgrades and servicing to streamline the process.

Due to the uniformity of light across the face of an LED luminaire, compared with fading and black spots with traditional tubes, luminaire designs can be more adventurous. Also, we can begin to specify fewer luminaires than previous schemes. The performance of LEDs means that required lux levels can be reached with fewer luminaires than traditional arrangements. Future design schemes will incorporate fewer luminaires and more controls to regulate lux levels and employ absence/presence detection to reduce wasted light.

LED is the future. Perhaps easier or more useful to quantify is your lighting future, driven by real-life budget constraints. Existing low-energy lamps still perform well, and colour rendering is often better than the LED equivalent.

Keeping up with the Jones’s LED installation only makes sense when you can afford it, but the investment will be worthwhile if the right product is selected.

What is important for those wishing to upgrade or install new systems is to source scalable solutions with elements of control that can be grown and include luminaires that are future-proof.

As the technology evolves, you need to be sure your investments won’t become obsolete. Quality LED luminaires are made to be serviceable at end of life. Producing smaller-scale boards in-house means that equivalent LED boards can still be produced afterwards rather than a situation where the product is obsolete. This is vitally important if the warranty and ‘value’ is to have any meaning.

Mike Attard is managing director of RIDI in the UK.

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