LED vs Florescent: Cost vs Sustainability
Replacing incandescent bulbs in your home with LED bulbs can bring costs down substantially. To give you an idea, a normal incandescent light bulb uses 100 Watts. Its LED equivalent uses 10 Watts. Futurelight has summarised it below:
Table 1: 10W LED Bulb vs 100W Incandescent Bulb
The decision is very easy when looking at how much you can save at home but how does it compare in retail, commercial and industrial space?
Lighting requirements in these 3 sectors differ slightly. For instance, in offices (commercial) you need 1 light for every 35 m2, to light up desks that are typically 1.2 m high. For shopping centres (retail) you need 1 light for every 10 m2. Warehouses are a little more complicated because the height is different, and the space is usually much bigger. The cost of electricity however does not change.
We adjusted the above table to show the impact on the replacement of traditional florescent tubes. They have a slightly better electricity usage but is still less sustainable than LED tubes.
Table 2: 10W LED Tubes vs 40W Florescent Tubes
When lights need replacement, White Boxing SA uses new LED tubes and panels.
Visit these links for more information:
https://www.energyfocus.com/blog/led-tube-lighting-vs-fluorescent/
https://www.savingenergy.org.za/asl/consumers/light-bulbs/index.html
https://www.bondcollective.com/blog/office-lighting/
https://jknvenergy.co.za/electricity-cost-per-kwh-south-africa/
https://www.futurelight.co.za/blogs/news/7498770-the-heavyweight-battle-100w-incandescent-vs-10w-led-bulb
