The adoption of industrial LED lighting is growing rapidly on a global scale as more companies in more industries discover the energy and maintenance-saving benefits of solid-state lighting. With growing availability in a wide range of form factors to suit virtually any application, LED is quickly gaining traction for its superior light output, which creates a brighter, safer environment.
Despite clear benefits, including a proven ROI and short payback, high-intensity discharge (HID) technologies like high-pressure sodium (HPS) and other conventional lighting sources remain fully entrenched. With some 144 million lights in place at 455,000 industrial facilities in the U.S. alone, HID sources still represent nearly 92 percent of all installed lighting.
The Environmental Cost of Antiquated Lighting
These highly inefficient fixtures consume a massive amount of electricity—roughly 58 terawatt hours per year, or enough to light a third of all U.S. homes. This, in turn generates more than 41 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, including 29 million tons of carbon emissions annually, the equivalent of nearly 9 million passenger vehicles driven every year. It also churns out as much as 73,000 tons of dangerous nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide, the leading causes of acid rain, smog, and respiratory damage.
This doesn’t include the amount of energy used to produce mass quantities of the fixtures and bulbs themselves, which are short-lived and require frequent replacement. And, because of the short lifespan and frequent change-out required, HPS fixtures contribute significantly to hazardous material pollution due to their mercury content. A single HPS bulb contains anywhere from 10-50 milligrams of mercury—enough to poison an entire classroom of children. But, generating the electricity it takes to light that one HPS lamp over its lifetime produces 10 times the mercury content of the bulb itself.
The Environmental Benefits of Industrial LEDs
Industrial LED fixtures solve a substantial portion of these environmental challenges. Not only are they up to 80 percent more energy efficient, which dramatically reduces the amount of pollution output as a result of electricity generation, but they also contain zero hazardous substances.
In fact, by converting the entire U.S. industrial installed base from HID to LED, U.S. facilities could not only save $3.6 billion in annual electricity costs, but also cut carbon emissions by 28 million metric tons, while also eliminating 67,000 tons of nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide, plus 330,000 grams of mercury. For organizations that make sustainable operations a priority—which is nearly every company these days—this can contribute significantly to reducing carbon footprint and meeting sustainability goals.
Fine-Tuning Fixture Design Amplifies Sustainability
While it’s clear that LED fixtures have a strong advantage over incumbent technologies, not all LED fixtures are made the same. The design of the fixture plays a major role in its performance, but it can also substantially affect the environmental impact. Through material selection, component configuration, and other design considerations, manufacturers can maximize the sustainability of their fixtures. Here’s how innovation is helping to reduce global pollution:
- Long-life performance optimizations: The solid-state design of LED fixtures makes them much more resistant to shock and vibration compared to HID systems. With no bulbs to change and an exponentially longer life, industrial LED fixtures virtually eliminate lighting waste. However, some LED fixtures far outlast others on the market, with the most robust systems rated for 100,000 hours of operation. By choosing these long-life fixtures facilities can cut the number of fixture change-outs required, reducing the need to dispose of spent fixtures.
- Housing materials: Some LED fixtures are very heavy, in part due to the heavy-duty housing materials the manufacturer has chosen to make them durable enough for industrial use. This not only makes them difficult to handle, but the added weight also reduces transportation efficiency, requiring more fuel to haul heavier loads and contributing to carbon emissions. More advanced industrial LEDs make use of a lightweight aluminum housing, which can even be made from recycled materials. These lightweight fixtures reduce shipping weight, lowering transportation fuel costs and emissions, and more of the fixture can be recycled at the end of its useful life. Some newer medium-duty fixtures even use industrial-grade polycarbonate that’s even lighter in weight, thus further reducing transportation emissions, and is also recyclable, to reduce landfill waste.
- Optical control: HID fixtures offer little in the way of lighting directional control—the light not only illuminates the floor, but also the ceiling and walls, wasting light and energy. On the other hand, when designed properly, LED fixtures enable precise optical control to maximize usable light and improve light uniformity. Beyond just the use of reflectors, the individual LEDs in lighting systems can be strategically placed and angled on the circuit board to direct the light where it is desired. The most elegant fixture designs use lighting-grade LEDs, as opposed to off-the-shelf, all-purpose, 5-mm multi-chip diodes. These fixtures are much smaller with a square-shaped diode, which enables each to be individually raised or aimed in any position to cast illumination in a specific direction. This precise placement of the LEDs themselves ensures a more uniform light appearance and accurate delivery of the rated lumens per watt precisely where it’s needed.
It can also mean that fewer fixtures may be required to light the same space, further reducing lighting-related pollution output. Consider this: switching from HID lighting fixtures to industrial LEDs would reduce lighting energy consumption by 52 terawatt hours a year, and that’s just one-for-one replacement. Further minimizing the number of fixtures in place not only reduces the resulting power-gen pollution, but also reduces throw-away waste—fewer lights means fewer fixtures going into the landfill.
- Thermal management: Heat output from industrial lighting fixtures not only directly impacts the efficiency and lifetime of the fixture, but it can also impact the ambient temperature in areas that require climate control. This can cause HVAC and refrigeration units to work overtime to overcome the heat. Conventional HID fixtures run extremely hot, up to 450°F for high-output systems. Some LED systems also don’t do the best job of handling thermal management, which can offset the energy-saving benefits and add to overall net pollution output, not to mention shorten the life of the fixture. This can cause early fixture failure, which requires change out and disposal of the spent fixture.
Well-designed thermal management systems within state-of-the-art LED fixtures can dramatically reduce heat output. This makes for a more comfortable work environment, and when HVAC and refrigeration is involved, cuts down on overall energy consumption by minimizing the load, which in turn helps decrease the amount of pollution output as a result.
- Custom drivers: LED fixture manufacturers that use off-the-shelf power supplies do so at greater risk of fixture life and environmental impact. Most standard power supplies are large, requiring a larger chassis, which means more material used for manufacturing. And, they’re simply not made for use in LED fixtures. In order to get brighter output from the LEDs themselves, some manufacturers ramp up power throughput, overdriving the LEDs. While this does increase brightness, it also consumes more electricity and shortens driver and overall fixture life, which means more pollution and disposal.
On the other hand, purpose-built power supplies that include drivers customized for LED fixture application are more compact, resulting in a smaller fixture and less material used for construction. They also contribute significantly to energy efficiency, deliver brighter, more uniform light output with less power, and don’t burn up the drivers or LEDs. As a result, a well-designed power supply and custom drivers can help reduce pollution output and contribute to sustainable operations.
- Smart controls/IIoT integration: Because of the extended warm-up period required for conventional HPS fixtures, these are not at all compatible with smart controls, IIoT, and building automation systems. And, not every industry LED fixture is compatible, either. Networkable LED fixtures with smart control/IIoT capabilities can be precisely controlled based on need. With the addition of occupancy sensors, fixtures can be switched off most of the time, and only turned on when workers enter the area. Daylight harvesting sensors allow the fixtures to dim automatically when ambient light levels are bright enough to reduce the need for artificial light, returning to full output when darkness falls.
Fixtures equipped with these features can reduce lighting electrical consumption by as much as 50 percent, which can have a major impact on power-generation pollution. In addition, some fixtures can even serve as wireless nodes to extend facility connectivity without added wiring and infrastructure. Again, this reduces materials consumption, which not only saves money, but also reduces environmental impact.
It’s no secret that industrial LED fixtures as a whole are a much more energy-efficient alternative to conventional HID sources, thereby reducing pollution output as a result of power generation. But, the reality is that not all industrial LED fixtures are created equal. By fine-tuning the design, LED fixture manufacturers can optimize their fixture for even greater sustainability. For facilities that purchase from leading-edge suppliers who make sustainability a priority, these refinements can contribute substantially to reducing overall carbon footprint and more environmentally friendly operations.