In the last 10 years there has been numerous changes in the LED lighting solutions that are available on the market. Now more than ever, there are more options to choose from, and risks to analyze when thinking about converting your linear fluorescent lamps to LEDs. In addition, there have been decreases in the prices of these products, which is an additional incentive to make these lighting upgrades in your facility. One important pricing trend that we are starting to see in the lighting industry is more traditional lighting manufacturers are now lowering prices on LED linear lamps. So, this makes buying from them more advantageous, versus buying from lesser-known lighting manufacturers.

The return on LED lighting can be drastic for even smaller facilities, there are significant reductions in energy usage, and maintenance cost. The average ROI on most lighting installations is about a year or less. This does depend on a couple of variables like: the annual burn time, kWh rates and, and the availability of utility rebates for DLC certified products. So, what does this mean for you? It basically means that waiting to install LED lights in your facility has a very tangible cost. Every day that you delay installing LED’s is additional energy costs that you are paying and higher labor costs that you are expending. (For recommendations on how to purchase LED lighting please review this resource.)

The great news is that, if you’re looking to retrofit from linear fluorescent to linear LED, you have a growing number of options. For instance

• Plug-and-play/ direct fit linear LED (UL type A). A plug-and-play, or direct fit, linear LED is probably what you’re imagining –– a simple, one-for-one swap out of the original linear fluorescent lamp. This lamp works directly with the existing fluorescent ballast, so there is no rewiring nor ballast change required.
• Ballast-bypass/ line voltage/ direct wire linear LED (UL type B). Bypass the ballast linear LEDs –– also known as line voltage or direct-wire linear LEDs –– work straight off the line voltage flowing directly to the sockets, requiring you to bypass the original fluorescent ballast.
• LED driver retrofit kit (UL type C) – This linear LED solution requires a ballast change, except instead of replacing the ballast with another ballast, you will replace it with an LED driver and your fluorescent lamps are replaced with linear LED lamps.

In conclusion we can see that there are numerous advantages to upgrading to linear LED lighting. The decreases in energy consumption, lower labor costs, and increased lighting performance. To learn more about selecting and installing linear LED lighting in your facility please reach out to Action Services Group by calling 610-558-9773, email [email protected], or schedule a call that fits your needs by clicking the button below. We could be happy to put together a free no-obligation quotation for your organization.