Watts lost through ballast?

[iwire]

I'm aware. He's happy so far which is only as far fraction of anticipated life. Long life is one of the main key performance and this includes performance stability over the expected lifespan. Just over one year is only a small fraction of expected life for TLED lamps and doesn't tell much about longevity.
He wasn't specific enough for me to comment on:
"everyone loves the color, and they are all the same color, instead of the higgledy piggledy colors we had before. For our plant, color rendition is important."

He could have meant having lamps of all the same kelvin temp instead of prior conditions caused by perpetually chasing after failed lamps with the cheapest "four foot long T8 fluorescent light bulb". I also am unsure of his context of importance behind color rendition. The idea of good rendition in industrial environment is very different from retail. Printing industry wants to have viewing conditions very close to ANSI or ISO conditions for improve consistency. Other industries may see good rendition as something that make defective conditions pop out to improve quality control. So his comments might be more generic and have little to do with merits of the specific product. The choice of one of half a dozen or so kelvin temps have immediately noticeable effect on perceived color rendition. Communication may have created psychological attribution to LED technology or the product.

They have new lighting they are happy with paid for by someone else.

From the facilities POV it is a win win.

 

[iwire]

Yep. They could have just as easily "we like the new lights because they are better than the old worn-out, poorly maintained lights".

You make a good point that they could just be happy because it was better than the old, not better than an alternative new. I find many times that industrial decisions are not always vetted thoroughly. Many decisions are made by those that have limited knowledge without input from those in the trenches that know better. It is rare for management to admit a bad call and they will many times push the idea that they made the right call and look for alternate excuses to blame since their heads are on the line. Such is life.

LED sales are full of hype and misinformation, at least in what I have seen. One really should dig into the details but is not often done. I appreciate the info. There are some great LED solutions and some not so great.

All true, but leaving out that they did not have to pay for much of it. So when these LED lamps die they can choose other ones, go back to fluorescents etc.

Now should they be subsidized? A subject for debate but a business would be smart to take advantage of it while it is available.

 

[mivey]

All true, but leaving out that they did not have to pay for much of it. So when these LED lamps die they can choose other ones, go back to fluorescents etc.

Now should they be subsidized? A subject for debate but a business would be smart to take advantage of it while it is available.

Rebate should apply for other energy saving technology, even T8 if it makes sense.

Suppose if in the future they discover T8 was a better choice? Now because they did not do their homework, the rebate was spent on an inferior solution and no more rebate is available. Just saying it might be worth some study rather than assuming.

 

[iwire]

Rebate should apply for other energy saving technology, even T8 if it makes sense.

Suppose if in the future they discover T8 was a better choice? Now because they did not do their homework, the rebate was spent on an inferior solution and no more rebate is available. Just saying it might be worth some study rather than assuming.

I am not saying I support the current rebate / subsidy programs only pointing out a business would be missing an opportunity if they don't take advantage of them.

 

[mivey]

I am not saying I support the current rebate / subsidy programs only pointing out a business would be missing an opportunity if they don't take advantage of them.

Absolutely. The program is there to help so use it. Just get the best bang for the buck. The rebate may not care which tech is used as long as the efficiency is improved.

 

[iwire]

Absolutely. The program is there to help so use it. Just get the best bang for the buck. The rebate may not care which tech is used as long as the efficiency is improved.

I am not in on the planning end of the jobs but my understanding is the utility has list of approved fixtures and lamps. I have no idea if it includes any T8 or T5 options.

Most of the LED installs I have done have been for a retail chain that finds value in green technology or more specifically the appearance of being green.

They actively seek out trendy green technology and install it. No one like Electric Light or yourself is looking it over with a critical eye.

I am simply an employee of sub contractor hired by an energy savings company to do the work they plan, sell to the retail chain.

It is not my place to question things.

 

[Electric-Light]

I am not in on the planning end of the jobs but my understanding is the utility has list of approved fixtures and lamps. I have no idea if it includes any T8 or T5 options.

Most of the LED installs I have done have been for a retail chain that finds value in green technology or more specifically the appearance of being green.

They actively seek out trendy green technology and install it. No one like Electric Light or yourself is looking it over with a critical eye.

I am simply an employee of sub contractor hired by an energy savings company to do the work they plan, sell to the retail chain.

It is not my place to question things.

Which is fine, but program administrators should try to stay on top of the thing and not become brain washed so these don't end up becoming a subsidy funded at public or utility customers' expense indirectly for something that doesn't offer the touted benefit in the most cost effective way. It's still absurd LEDs have become standardized by the industry to be allowed 30% depreciation for everything including in applications traditionally filled by lamps that do not wear anything near as bad.

The problem is things aren't presented to help make informed decisions. It seems like Philips backed off a notch compared to a few years ago when InstantFit first came out and they were asserting two lamp T8 systems use something something around 70W and suggesting a pair of their $25 1400 lm drop-in would be appropriate equivalency.

 

[iwire]

Which is fine, but program administrators should try to stay on top of the thing and not become brain washed so these don't end up becoming a subsidy funded at public or utility customers' expense indirectly for something that doesn't offer the touted benefit in the most cost effective way.

The retail chain looking to be green has no control at all over the subsidy rules. but they would be dumb not to take advantage if it.

Do you agree with that?

 

[Barbqranch]

The energy savings non-profit that works w/ POCO brought us the project, so no, we didn't investigate all possible tubes. It was more a case of here are the tubes, go ahead and install them.

The tubes we got from Philips only use one of the two pins on each end for power. In some cases, the tombstone wasn't powered on that side of the 2 pins, so it had to be fixed. You can't just turn these bulbs over to use the other pins (well I guess you can, but then the light is all going up).

The suits we make are made up of many different pieces, and it is important they all match, which makes uniform light important.