There is no doubt about the fact that a well-lit parking lot is important for your business. Apart from offering a secure place for your clients and employees to park their vehicles it also portrays the image of your brand.
A good parking long fitted with sufficient lighting adds to the convenience of your users, improves the security and most importantly adds to the aesthetic appeal of your property.
When winter sets in and daylight hours fall these lights reassure your employees and welcome customers to your business. It can lend you competitive edge over your business rivals.
It goes without saying that your parking lot lights demand regular maintenance for their upkeep. As someone who is in charge of the parking you will have to schedule and plan out regular repair and replacement regime.
Now if you are planning for a major maintenance plan it is worth considering replacement of old HID lights with the more energy efficient LED parking lot lights. You would benefit in a number of ways by installing LED lights during your next maintenance schedule and here we look at some of the benefits that follow –
Energy Saving –
If you are operating a large parking lot you would be incurring thousands of dollars towards your energy bills. HID lights for all the lighting they offer consume lot of energy. In fact these lights account for substantial part of your yearly operational cost.
But did you know you would be able to bring down your energy consumption by as much as 60-70% by switching to LED technology. And the figure we are quoting here is conservative as businesses have been able to cut down on energy consumption event more.
With this cutting-edge technology you will be able to achieve improved lighting in your parking lot with lesser number of fixtures as they light up a wider area from the same pole height as compared to HID which create extremely bright and dark spots.
HID lights have a fundamental disadvantage when it comes to their efficiency rate. Around 30% of the rated lumens are lost inside the light and doesn’t make it to the ground. You’d have no such worries with LED lights.
Warm-up Time –
You may be tired of the warm-up time of 5-10 minutes that your lights take to offer optimal lighting. While this might not sound much these 5-10 minutes of warm-up time dissuades you from switching off the lights in unused places of your parking lot.
LED lights on the other hand work much like the light fittings inside your home which you can switch on and off at will and they are at their optimal performance instantly. When you are using LEDs you will be able to switch-off lights in unused areas of your parking lot and switch them on whenever they are required and this helps in bringing down your energy bills.
Lower Maintenance Costs –
You’d already be aware of the cost you incur in the repair, replacement and maintenance of you parking lot lights. With LED parking lot lights you’d be able to save substantially on this. To start with LED lights have a life span of almost 50,000 hours that’s nearly four times HID lights.
On the lumen depreciation count too LED lights tends to score high as HID lights lose lot of their lumens 12-15 months into operation and thus you need to replace them more frequently. As far as damage due to weather factors such as rain, snow and high velocity wind is concerned HID lights are prone to damage. Given the high labor costs involved in maintaining them HID lights tend to cost you lot more during their service life as compared to installing LED lights in your parking lot.
Improved Aesthetics –
Lets state a truth, you may not be completely pleased with the aesthetic appeal of your parking lot with the current HID lights. These lights weren’t designed to increase the aesthetic appeal of the parking lot either. Their sole purpose was to offer sufficient light around your parking lot and they do this job pretty well.
But LED lights belong to the 21st century (though the technology was there even in the last century) and hence they are more chic and sophisticated. If you take up an installation project you’d be able to choose from a wide selection of lights and fixtures that increase the aesthetic appeal of your property.
Reduced Carbon Footprint –
A single HID light of 1000W operating for 8 hours a day generates about 2500 kilograms of Carbon Dioxide annually assuming the power you are using comes from a coal fired electricity generating station. Add to the even more dangerous Sulphur Dioxide which is responsive for acid rains and Nitrogen Dioxide that cause smog we are counting some serious environmental costs here. And you know you are using much more energy than that in lighting up your parking lot.
When you install LED parking lot lights instead you will be producing roughly one-sixth of that amount of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases if you stick to the same power company. If you wish to reduce your carbon footprint further you can install solar panels at a later stage and this will help you bring the carbon footprint in operating your parking lot even further which is gratifying, isn’t it?
Installing LED parking lot lights during your next parking lot maintenance project might sound expensive but the savings they promise in the long run will easily outweigh the added capital expenditure that would go into installing them instead of your regular maintenance plan. Also you should bear in mind that the cost of LEDs is at a historical low and you shouldn’t let this opportunity pass by.
By choosing a professional company for installing your LED parking lot lights you will be able to increase the aesthetic appeal of your property and also play your small part in arresting damage to the environment due to our dependence of fossil fuels for powering our lives.
Summary:
In this write-up look at some of the reasons you should consider LED parking lot lights when you are taking up a parking lot maintenance project.