How Switching to LED Can Save Money in an Ex Environment

12 September 2016

In any industry there is almost always a pressure to reduce costs and ensure a site is running as efficiently as possible. Lighting often contributes significantly towards both electrical costs and the overall running costs of a site. If a site is still using traditional lighting, such as sodium floodlights or fluorescent linear lighting, an excellent opportunity exists to make significant cost savings by upgrading to LED. In this article we will look at the advantages of switching to an LED solution and how it can help to save money.

1: Energy Savings and Reducing Consumption

LEDs are an extremely efficient light source and use much less power to produce the same light output as a traditional fitting. LEDs also have the added advantage of generating less heat, a by-product of inefficient lighting. This means that every LED luminaire installed can deliver energy savings; as an example, a traditional 400W Floodlight (which will actually use around 440W of power in total) can be replaced by a SPARTAN LED Floodlight which uses 136W of power, saving around 304W for every luminaire switched to LED. Extend this saving over a larger installation and the savings on running costs are significant, while also providing a more environmentally friendly solution.

Reducing consumption of a lighting solution can also provide cost savings in other ways. For larger installations which rely on generators to provide power, limited capacity can often be a problem. By switching to LED and reducing the wattage per unit, overall consumption can be reduced meaning the electrical savings can be allocated elsewhere, to other electrical equipment on site – far cheaper than extending generator capacity.

2: Minimising Light Wastage

Unlike traditional technology which throws light out in all directions, LEDs can deliver highly directional light to illuminate only the areas where light is required. Whilst traditional fittings use reflectors to direct light, the results are often imprecise due to limited controllability.   SPARTAN’s LED luminaires use Raytec’s Vario technology to offer a choice of 8 different beam patterns, circular and elliptical, ensuring light is targeted and not wasted. Reducing the amount of wasted light will ultimately help to save costs by ensuring money and energy is not spent illuminating areas of the site where light isn’t needed.

3: Reduced Maintenance

With Ex applications often located in areas of restricted access, a low maintenance lighting solution should be essential. As an example, conducting maintenance work to a luminaire on an offshore rig may require rope access or the use of specialist machinery, such as helicopters or cherry pickers which result in high expenditure. Reducing the number of maintenance interventions by converting to LED luminaires can therefore help make significant savings.

SPARTAN LED luminaires offer a lifetime of 100,000+ hours, without the need for re-lamping or maintenance, significantly reducing maintenance costs in comparison to traditional fittings. SPARTAN can also offer greater flexibility; for example LED and PSU modules can be split so the PSUs can be removed and located remotely at ground level for easier inspection.

In an Ex environment, as well as being energy efficient, lighting is often exposed to constant shock and vibration in extreme temperatures. SPARTAN luminaires offer reliability when it counts, built with marine grade aluminium and designed without ledges to prevent dust or water from accumulating, a vibration resistant design, and a wide operating temperature of -50°C up to +60°C means SPARTAN luminaires are able to withstand even the most challenging of conditions.

If you have an application with an existing installation of fluorescent luminaires, contact sales@raytecled.com or call +44 (0) 1670 520055 to find out about the benefits of upgrading to LED with SPARTAN.

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