A lack of technical knowledge at the board level is inadvertently transforming the Capex decision of a lighting purchase into an Opex burden. Capex on LED lighting should be a long-term investment that results in significantly reduced energy costs and minimal maintenance. However, there's a misconception at the management level that LED luminaires will last forever. While LED luminaires can last a long time if purchased based on quality, management often forgets this crucial fact when choosing luminaires. Cheap is nasty, and company executives will find their Capex becoming an annual Opex cost if they don’t purchase wisely.
Management understands that you wouldn’t take a Corolla to Savuti and would pay the price for the functionality of a Land Cruiser. Price didn’t come into the decision-making. Why, then, when it comes to lighting, are all these sound principles forgotten? For some obscure and unfathomable reason, management believes that luminaires are different from cars and that they can use inferior quality for high-end industrial use.
For example, in a recent installation of 1000 imported industrial LED luminaires, we found that 95% had failed in less than a year. Management made the decision to import because of the price! The construct of the luminaires was unsuitable for the application. The ultimate cost of this hard-learned lesson is that they are now replacing the lights with the ones they should have used in the first instance.
If you are in management and you don’t know the answers to the following basic questions, we can help you with your decisions:
- What is the importance of the quality of heatsinking in a fitting?
- What is the difference between LED chip lumens and system lumens?
- How does lumens per watt translate into energy efficiency?
- How do you measure the comparable lifespans of an LED luminaire?
- How is lumen depreciation determined?
- What wattage and temperature are the LEDs operating at? (Thermal junction temperature can affect life expectancy by more than ten times)
- What is the life cycle cost of a luminaire?
- Why is the maintenance factor important in an LED lighting design?
- What is covered by a warranty?
- Is the luminaire future-proofed?
Lighting is a fast-changing science that is not taught but acquired through experience. As a result, even professionals specifying projects and facility managers are often not up to speed with the intricacies and nuances of LED lighting. The challenge for management is that they are relying on unqualified personnel for a key decision—a real case of the blind leading the blind.
Nordland has over five decades of experience in the manufacture of high-end custom solutions that are sustainable and far more cost-effective than the cheap and nasty options on the market. We welcome the chance to engage with management, technical teams, and professionals so that your next purchasing decision doesn’t turn Capex into ongoing costly Opex.
