For the hotel industry, energy savings can be one of the best ways to reduce cost while increasing guest satisfaction. The industry not only is being encouraged to switch its energy consumption practices to more environmentally friendly alternatives but also is being incentivized by local municipalities to implement these changes.
Some states are going as far as offering tax breaks for businesses that are switching to more efficient lighting, like light-emitting diodes (LEDs) or compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). In many areas, matching funds also are available for energy saving programs.
Those in the hotel industry are weighing the pros and cons of alternative lighting sources from cost considerations to their environmental impact. On average, interior lighting accounts for 28 percent of a business’s energy bill. Switching to efficient lighting can help reduce the energy consumption and overall operating costs, while providing an opportunity to demonstrate tangible environmental responsibility to hotel guests.
Beware of LED Hype
LEDs are the fastest-growing category of lighting technology, but the excitement and hype around LEDs are at once overdone for the near term and understated in terms of potential for the long term. For a hotel looking to make a switch to more energy-efficient lighting, it is very tempting to jump into LED solutions and eliminate the problems of mercury and light quality that plague fluorescent solutions. Jumping is fine, but let’s take a look at how to do it with both feet on the ground by exploring some factors to consider when evaluating the role that LEDs should play in your lighting plans.
Before you try to figure out what type of lighting to buy, consider the purpose behind making the switch. Are you aiming to lower energy costs and take advantage of tax incentives? Do you want the longest-lasting bulb you can find? Are you looking to demonstrate innovation and forward green thinking? Do you want to stop changing bulbs for 15 years? Considerable options are available for each goal, including LED lighting, which offers the benefits of long life and mercury-free content in addition to energy savings.
Currently, the reality is that LED lights cost several times as much as incandescent and fluorescent lights. The good news is that the cost is dropping as the technology is improving; the costs of LEDs as measured in dollars per lumen have come down 50 percent in the last year and a half.
Payback Time Improving
Even with the relatively high initial investment, LEDs are now able to show paybacks in the two-to-eight-year range, depending on the application and energy costs. Adding in labor savings, such as not having to replace bulbs and ballasts, can further reduce the payback period.
When looking at energy usage for bulbs, most packages or retailers will offer information on lumens per watt. Lumens per watt measures the amount of light produced for each watt of electricity consumed. More lumens per watt means more light for your money. In just the past year, we have seen commercially available LEDs move from 65 lumens per watt to more than 90 lumens per watt. There seems to be a pretty clear path past 150 lumens per watt and then a reasonable expectation of approaching 200 lumens per watt within the next five to seven years. Considering the LED bulb’s low energy expenditure, the total cost of ownership (over its 60,000-hour lifespan) is low enough to offset the high initial cost.
Be careful not to confuse the advertised lumens per watt of LEDs with the actual lumens per watt efficacy of finished LED products that include system efficiencies, such as power conversion circuitry and optical losses. In calculating energy savings you must first ascertain that the light being proposed is adequate for the area and task to be illuminated and then determine the total watts required to do so.
Extremely Long Bulb Life Possible
If the goal is to find a bulb that’s going to last for extended periods between replacements, the LED bulb is an obvious choice. With proper thermal design, LEDs can achieve more than 60,000 hours of life while maintaining 70 percent of original light output. CFL lights typically last only between 6,000 and 15,000 hours. This long life can significantly decrease total cost of ownership when the cost of changing tubes, bulbs, and ballasts for fluorescent and incandescent lighting is calculated. The methods of calculating these non-energy operational costs will vary from business to business and, unfortunately, are not usually part of an energy-savings rebate calculation. Combined with energy savings, however, reductions in system maintenance can greatly reduce the ROI of LED installations.
The right investment in the right lighting technology can brighten the hotel industry’s bottom line considerably in the long run, because for each venue the savings per bulb are multiplied by hundreds or thousands of rooms, corridors, public spaces, restaurants and shops. Hotels are rethinking their approach to energy savings, and LEDs are about to become a prudent solution for many.
Dave Simon has more than 23 years of design and development experience and was Altair Engineering’s principal-product innovation prior to the formation of ilumisys, Inc., a developer and producer of next-generation solid-state lighting technology. ilumisys, formed in 2007, is a spinoff of Altair Engineeing, a global software and technology company that has a growing presence in the energy market. With the backing of Altair, ilumisys has a deep research and development background with numerous patents and patents pending.
