In the world of lighting, LED has become an unstoppable force. It is now difficult to envisage a refurbishment or new build that does not feature LED lights within its lighting scheme. There are huge benefits in terms of energy and cost savings with lighting bills cut by up to 90%. Yet the widespread adoption of LED lamps and fixtures has been held back by confusion among specifiers and commissioning clients. British manufacturer Integral LED has chosen a novel approach in an attempt to demystify the process of retrofit lighting by presenting the tangible bonus of a swap to LED upfront and online.
Contractors and homebuilders can now access a free energy saving calculator that allows everyone to assess the benefits of LED retro-fit lights. The website is open to all and does not require any buying obligation on behalf of the user. It provides a practical means of sourcing a replacement lamp, downlight or panel by initially helping the user to visually identify an LED alternative to an existing incandescent, halogen or fluorescent light-source. The Integral LED website then offers a range of products displayed according to the total amount of light (lumens) output for each replacement light. It is therefore possible to select a whole inventory of lamps and fittings for a current building project; but it is here the extremely useful bit of the calculator kicks in.
Use of the LED retro-fit light calculator is intended for professional installer and commissioning client alike. Effectively, choose your new lights for each room of the building. Decide on the lumen levels required. As each space or area is calculated the specifications are stored. Ultimately the complete project and the required replacement lights are added to a total. As the lights are picked and multiplied according to the number required for each room – the real benefits are collated. Using two usage scales, an accurate cost savings profile is totalised for each lamp, for each interior space and ultimately for the whole building. A default 3 hours usage per day at 14 pence per hour electricity cost is customisable for each lamp, and usage figures for panels and downlights are similarly adjustable – allowing the user to flexibly model the 24 hour lighting regime of a complete home or office.
The results of a switch to LED lighting always has a profound and pleasing effect on clients. The Integral LED calculator provides clear cost saving results for each retro-fit light. It also works out a payback time for each light and the build project as a whole, against the level of investment incurred up-front. For the environmentally conscious (as we all should be) the level of carbon CO2 reduction is displayed within the results summary – which allows us to hold our head up (for a while) on climate change. Very usefully, the whole exercise can then be shared with a customer as a pdf document, email or printed off as a reference for a site meeting. Additionally the Savings Calculator (as well as the complete Integral LED website) has a responsive design that delivers a user-friendly experience on tablets and smartphones, in addition to PC based web browsers. This is ideal for a spontaneous demonstration of the benefits of LED lighting in our daily battle against costs: www.integral-led.com/ savingscalc.
