I know you are obsessed with this to the point of having a closed mind but I will point out again that the customers we have done this work for are satisfied.
It is not always about the energy savings, sometimes it is for public relation reasons, sometimes it is about getting new and modern looking fixtures to update the looks of their facility at a vastly reduced price due to the rebates.
As far as energy savings the wattage drops and the humans feel the light level remains the same or increases. Don't bother showing me how a light meter disagrees with this assessment. Lighting is not installed to satisfy a meter, it is installed to satisfy the humans working under them.
We still have plenty of Energy Retrofit Sales companies that cold call small/medium businesses and even now the biggest persuasion is still "comparable performance" with "lots less watt" that credit "LED technology". Decent light meters are designed to match our eyes response. At very low light level, we see bluish light as brighter. It was common for Energy Retrofit Sales companies to pitch 6500K lamps crediting induction or LED technology, rather than the 6500K. That was when white LEDs were only available in 6500K.
You can get the same effect with 6500K T8 or CFLs we had for ever. They're still available, but they don't sell much. 3500K and 4100K dominate the commercial lamp market. Most people simply don't care for 6500K. Another common Energy Retrofit LED sales trick is using search light beam fixtures that aim straight down like a flashlight to get a good horizontal FC level while cutting down wattage. High bay fixtures have been available under many different beam angles, but we don't use super narrow beam fixtures, because it reduces the vertical FC and lowers the overall lighting quality.
Some LED highbays are 5,500K. I think it is for the brightness perception.
If you are a business it would be ridiculous not to take advantage of the rebates even if you disagree with the reasons for the rebate programs.
I've seen my share of LED retrofits gone horrible. Shadow casts, ghostly bluish white atmosphere and poor uniformity.
Usally the energy company presents it to the EC as a 'one for one direct replacement' but when the material arrives and you are on the job you find you are pulling out 8' fixtures and replacing them with 4' fixtures which is a real drag if they are surface piped. Or the original outside flood is a tennon mount and the replacement is not etc.
I have to say 277v fixtures when the power to pole is 480v would be considered wrong fixtures. Just like motels getting 277v PTACs when their outlets are 208v.
Again, this is just my own personal experience over about 15 years of doing this stuff. Before LEDs it was HIDs to T8s, than T12s to T5s etc.
There is one fact we can probably agree. MH lamps have a very significant lumen depreciation, so design takes this into consideration and voltage has a significant effect on output unless you're using CWA ballasts. The big leap for fluorescent lamps was the electronic ballast.
We can also probably agree that many customers are probably not made aware that 220W fluorescent T5 system is comparable to 175W LED system they're pitching as a replacement for their 440W input MHs.
Modern electronic ballasts provide regulation and voltage variation has zero effect on light effect. Combined with lamps having higher than 90% lumen maintenance over their life and redundancy of having multiple lamps per fixture, it can be designed much leaner and essentially eliminate the need to over light to keep room for depreciation. This covers most of why 220W of fluorescent replaces MH that uses 440W. Fluorescent already offers instant on, instant restrike. These are not selling points that separate LEDs vs fluorescent.
Both fluorescent and LED electronic ballasts isolate output from line voltage variations. Good linear T5 and t8 fixtures approach 95% light utilization. LEDs have worse lumen maintenance than T8s, but they're closing the gap. While T8s displaced T12s, T8s and T5s co-exist for different applications rather than replacing.
As of now, the best LEDs are only about 20% energy reduction over latest T5/T8s, but cost many times more and a 20% reduction from 220W to 176W doesn't quite justify the price even when you're replacing MHs. Ripping out T5/T8 to replace with LEDs is out of question.
Fluorescent lamps are not practical for street lighting and current HID directional fixtures have terrible reflector efficiency, so LEDs have the advantage for this application.
