The term parking lot lighting refers to outdoor lights often mounted on poles and erected in parking lots, pathways, and driveways. The most prevalent aspect of this type of outdoor lighting is the installation of light lights on poles. This type of lighting is frequently employed to illuminate areas for automobile and foot traffic. Multiple lights mounted on a single pole are uncommon, despite the fact that mounting techniques might vary substantially.
You may recognize the following images of outdoor lighting fixtures used in parking and area lighting applications. This is only a small visual sampling of the many different varieties of outdoor pole lights.
Traditional Lighting Issues: All HID bulbs have some intrinsic qualities that might cause problems for those in charge of controlling the outside lighting of an organization or business.
Energy Expenses
Common (HID) parking lot and area light fixture lamp wattages range from 100 to 1000 watts. The higher the wattage, the greater the amount of light emitted. Existing wattages are determined by the purpose of the area being lit in conjunction with the number, spacing, and mounting height of the poles and fixtures. A 400w or 1000w HID fixture (quite popular wattages for parking and area lighting) can cost up to $209 in addition to $525 in power expenditures to operate each bulb, every year.
Maintenance Costs
For outdoor lighting applications like parking and area light fixtures, maintenance costs are sometimes a major problem. In addition to possible bulb lifetime difficulties, parking and area lights sometimes require a bucket truck or hoist to replace a lamp or ballast since they are frequently mounted on poles higher than 15 feet. Many buildings and facilities lack their bucket truck or lift, necessitating the hiring of a third party to service these assets. These costs might accumulate over the course of several years. For instance, labor and materials for maintaining a single parking or area light fixture for three years might cost up to $1,200.
Lighting Efficiency
The performance characteristics of your parking and area lighting might vary substantially based on the type of HID bulb your company employs. For instance, if you are using metal halide lamps, you may see “whiter” light, but these types of lamps tend to have accelerated lumen degradation, which means that the light output of the lamps decreases rapidly after initial installation, and as a result, the overall lifetime of the lamp decreases. Using high-pressure sodium may result in a longer “useful” life, as these lamps have less brightness degradation than metal halide, however, their fuel structure provides a highly “orange” light with a very low CRI. Visually speaking, you exchange a longer lifespan for a lower-quality light source.
Advantages Of LED Lighting
Because of how they generate and disperse light, outdoor LED lighting fixtures, such as LED parking lot lights, offer a number of benefits for parking and area applications. In contrast to HID lights, light-emitting diodes emit light using a semiconductor rather than a “fuel source.” To “distribute” light, LED lights often use “multi-point” sources, which are composed of many diodes with independent lenses. In comparison to standard HID lights (with a single bulb and reflectors within the fixture), the result is light that is “distributed” across a surface more evenly. The three most prevalent advantages of LED parking lot lighting are:
Energy Savings
Common LED parking lot lighting wattages range from 40w to 600w, resulting in energy savings of 40% to 60%. This is the outcome of how light is produced (see above). This results in power cost reductions of up to $300 per fixture per year for your facility.
Cost Of Maintenance Reduction
Again, due to how LEDs create light, their useful lives evolve quite differently. Instead of ceasing to function once a fuel supply is sufficiently depleted, the light brightness of LEDs diminishes extremely gradually over time. Consequently, the functional life (typically greater than 100,000 hours) of an LED product may be substantially longer than that of an HID lamp, which greatly decreases the expenses associated with maintaining the parking and coverage area of a parking lot light fixture over a longer period.
Lighting Efficiency
The multi-point design of LED outdoor lighting fixtures for parking and area lighting applications results in a highly uniformly dispersed light pattern. This indicates that the variation in light levels across a given area will decrease as the distance from the pole or fixture increases. HID lights often generate a “bright spot” directly beneath the fixture, with light levels diminishing dramatically as distance from the pole rises. LEDs address this issue by distributing light evenly. In comparison to HID, the LED conversion results in a more uniform dispersion of footcandles. LEDs are available in a number of color temperatures, allowing a variety of choices for boosting the visual impression of “brightness” in addition to delivering an equal dispersion of light.
How Do I Choose The Next Step For Enhancing My Outside Lighting For Parking And Area Illumination?
The first step is to consult with a manufacturer-agnostic LED lighting solutions vendor. Why is this technique as opposed to the corporation you may have employed in the past? Unless that firm specializes in LED solutions, it is doubtful that it will have the performance-oriented mindset necessary to achieve the desired outcomes with an outside LED lighting conversion. Understanding that LED technology is NOT a commodity is a vital step for every LED project. In previous decades, building facility managers and owners evaluated product selections only based on price, presuming that all options were of comparable quality. The opposite is true with outdoor LED lighting.
A solution-oriented vendor should inquire about your project’s goals. Exist budgetary limits, energy reduction goals, lighting performance specifications, etc. The suitable partner will seek to comprehend your desired outcome rather than only the things they may offer you. Not all LED products are equivalent. By collaborating with a firm that has the product experience to offer a solution that aligns with your project’s goals, you will get the greatest outcomes.
