FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA.—We are used to the orange glow of sodium-based parking lights; you know the ones that take forever to illuminate after a power failure. This is the most common form of exterior lighting, although many areas of your facility will use different lighting depending on the situation. For large area illumination, High Pressure (HP) Sodium and Metal Halide are most commonly used because that has been the standard for many years. These technologies do have drawbacks: low quality of light spectrum, poor low temperature operation and a short life span of about 15,000 hours.
Induction Lighting is the newest solution and directly replaces HP Sodium and Metal Halide bulbs. Induction lamps are still the best kept secret in the U.S. lighting industry, although they were actually introduced in 1990. It is quite unbelievable that although Induction Lights are one of the best technologies developed in recent years, many land developers, designers and distributors in the lighting industry are still not familiar with this product. Compact fluorescent technology has become much more widely accepted because the technology was better understood and the product was more easily adapted to existing luminaire designs.
The most significant advantage with induction lighting is its incredibly long lifetime. In a fluorescent lamp, the electrodes at either end are the weakest link, and the lamp usually fails when the cathode coating on one of the electrodes is depleted after 15,000 to 20,000 hours. Induction lamps have no such electrodes, so their rated lifetimes are as long as 120,000 hours with good vibration resistance and low starting temperatures, making them a good choice for industrial operating environments.
This type of lighting is based on a technology that is fundamentally different from that of incandescent lamps or today’s conventional gas-discharge lamps, (e.g., fluorescent or high-intensity discharge (HID)). The technology deployed in the Induction Lamp induction lighting system combines the basic principles of electromagnetic induction and gas discharge to create a light bulb with no filament or electrodes. The elimination of filaments and electrodes results in a lamp of unmatched durability.
Savings in Labor & Energy
Rated at 100,000 hours or 25 years, this system will outlast 100 incandescent or four HID or fluorescent lamp changes. With a virtually zero maintenance requirement, the induction lighting system offers substantial savings in direct maintenance costs, while eliminating the inconvenience and indirect costs due to service interruption for maintenance work. Other advantages of the new induction lighting system include instant flicker-free starting and higher color rendering index (.80), and lower luminous depreciation. The energy saving comes from the light quality (CRI) which uses less wattage for the required illumination.
Operating cost savings and quality of light output are the main factors when considering conversion to Induction Lighting. For example, HP Sodium needs to be changed 3.7 times over 10 years and costs $3,427 for energy, maintenance and material. This should be compared to Metal Halide which needs to be changed 8.8 times a year and costs $3,868 for energy, material and maintenance. With Induction, this bulb doesn’t need to changed, therefore the cost for energy, maintenance and material is dramatically reduced to $2,450.
It is possible in many circumstances to reduce the energy use even more than shown by reducing the actual wattage required—due to higher quality white light inherent with the inductive technology.
Conversion for existing fixtures also requires a ballast change with this new technology and has been designed to be a straightforward installation process. Initial cost of induction lighting is higher than its predecessors, but as with CFL conversion, the payback greatly outweighs the initial costs.
You will notice the almost “instant on” ignition time for Induction lamps which opens up additional applications such as motion-activated lighting for hospitality rooms, walk ways, or other intermittent lighting scenarios to further reduce energy use as prescribed in the LEED certification criteria.
Types of Induction Light Sources
There are several commercially available induction lamps in the lighting market today.
• Separate-ballasted Cavity Induction Lamps. This electrode-less fluorescent induction lamp operates at 2.65 MHz with system power 55W and an efficiency of about 75 lm/W. The 2.65 MHz is specifically allocated in accordance with IEC regulations, for industrial application as radio frequency lighting devices. Lamps having the higher rating of 85W, 100W, 125W and 165W are also available for applications where high intensity lighting is required.
• External-coil Induction Lamps. The external-coil induction lighting system is made from a tube encircled by two closed ferrite cores. The lamp ratings available are 75W, 100W and 150W at an efficacy of 80 lm/W. The designed operating frequency is 250 kHz only, which is not governed by the radio frequencies allocated for industrial applications.
• Self-ballasted Cavity Induction Lamps. Another version of the cavity induction lamp is designed to integrate the RF generating ballast into the lamp.
Jay Cullimore is the C.E.O. of Tropical Lights Inc., Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
