If you talk to an LED lighting professional about light output or read any light spec, you will most probably encounter the word lumen. Lumen or the meaning behind it is a fundamental term in the lighting world and one which I will deconstruct for you in this article.
In a nut shell, lumen is a measure of the total amount of visible light emitted by a lighting source. Taking an incandescent bulb as an example – the more light it outputs, the higher the number of lumens.
In most commercial environments it makes sense to install or retrofit existing lights with high lumen lights and traditionally this meant that you had to replace your existing with higher wattage alternatives. Thankfully however, with the introduction and the ever progression of LED, this is no longer the case.
Lighting lumens versus watts
Just as important as lumens is when you measure the amount of light (lumens) emitted by a lamp for each unit of electrical power (watts) used. This is called luminous efficacy and in simple terms means the efficiency with which a light source provides visible light from electricity.
If you think about a standard 100 watt incandescent light bulb that you can buy from your local supermarket, these have a lumens value of around 1,600. To work out the lights efficiency, you divide the lumens by the watts and it works out to be around 16 lumens per watt. This is considered very poor efficiency. In comparison, our H-Flux 150 highbay uses a mere 29 watts more than the standard light bulb example above, but outputs light of over 15,000 lumens. It therefore has an efficacy of 118 lumens per watt – an excellent efficiency.
It’s vital when considering upgrading your existing lighting to factor in the lights efficiency. More often than not you want more light rather than less and you want to save money. One of our lighting specialists can read the lighting levels in your business and recommend the best lights for your environment, saving you up to 80% off your lighting power bill.
Lighting lumen maintenance
When a lamp is new its light output is at a maximum. As the lamp burns through its life, the output declines – and in the case of halogen, mercury vapour or incandescent it is at a much faster rate than LED lighting. The term used to describe how the light output declines is called lumen maintenance. Lumen maintenance is important for those who are responsible for maintaining or designing the light levels in buildings and makes it possible to schedule replacement of lamps before the light levels become too low.
Again, if you think this is the case for your business, contact us on 1300 013 648 and we can deliver a customised solution best suited for your needs.
