Are you thinking about replacing your current lights with new LED lights and wondering how much you'll save? Since the savings depend on the lights you're replacing and what you're replacing them with, we thought we'd show you the simple math and provide you with a calculator so you can easily estimate your savings.

ENERGY CONSUMPTION PER DAY
Watts x Hours of Use = Watt Hours / 1000 = kWh

For instance, 60 watts x 3 hours per day = 180 watt hours per day. 180/1000 = .18 kWh per day.

COST PER YEAR
Now multiply by your cost of electricity per kWh, as seen on your energy bill. Don't forget to include delivery costs, which are often listed separately.

15 cents = .15 x 65.7 kWh = $9.86
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For many people, lighting is something they only think about when replacing a light bulb. But inside the industry, we see plenty of interesting stories about light. And a lot has happened in 2015, so once again we offer our "Year in Lighting Review" to showcase some of our favorite moments this year.
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The University of Missouri explored whether LED lighting could keep red meat looking red longer in order to encourage more sales.

It turns out that any light turns starts turning meat gray (though this can still be safe to eat) sooner than meat kept in the dark. But initial results showed LEDs kept meat red longer than meat kept under fluorescent lights. Some grocers have begun changing to LEDs in meat display cases.

​Read more in the original article!

Many of us no doubt remember the blackout that occurred at the Superbowl in 2013. The lights went out and play was interrupted for 34 minutes. A big part of that was due to the fact that metal halide lamps that light up most sports fields cannot be turned on and off like the lights people use in their homes or offices.

Metal halides have a restrike time of several minutes; once they're shut off, the arc tube needs to cool down before you can turn the lights back on. Then they have a prolonged warm-up period as they gradually approach full light output.

LED lights not only save money by using far less energy, but they also eliminate the problem of restrike and warm-up periods. So many stadiums are beginning to install LED lights, and the Mariners' Safeco Field was the first MLB stadium to have them installed. Read the full article here.

We're all familiar with Wi-Fi as the way we transmit wireless data with radio waves. But in the last few years, Li-Fi has made some big strides, and it looks like it won't be long before we use light to transmit data faster than we can with Wi-Fi. This year, Li-Fi was frequently in the news, and a recent TED talk showed how it can be integrated into solar panels to connect the world even in remote locations.

Click here for some of the latest news on Li-Fi.​

Inspired by needs of the Haitian people following the 2010 earthquake, the CEO of Solight Design developed an LED light that could fold flat in order to package large quantities easily and inexpensively, which is especially important for humanitarian relief efforts. The light pops up into a box format and charges from the sun. It can run approximately 8-12 hours when fully charged, and produces light equivalent to a 10-15 watt incandescent bulb, depending on the setting.

The concept is meant to extend beyond emergency situations to more than 1 billion people worldwide without access to electric lighting, joining a number of other efforts to get safe lighting to the world.

This year, the company successfully funded a Kickstarter campaign to ramp up production and distribution and turn their idea into a widespread solution.

While it might not produce the warmth of sunshine, developers of a new artificial skylight called Coelux have tried to exactly mimic the experience of sunlight in a room. It even uses the same scientific process that makes the sky appear blue, so you see "blue" in addition to sunshine "through" this skylight. One goal is to provide office spaces that provide an apparent connection to the sun, even if they underground or at the center of a building.

Right now, the price is well out of range of your average home, but maybe through commercial adoption, this kind of lighting will become commonplace.
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No, we're not talking about e-readers here. And we're not talking about paper powered by LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes).

​Scientists at Umea University in Sweden altered a piece of paper and then ran 11 volts of current through it to make it light up. This could be one more way to provide low-cost lighting to those living off the grid, but has other potential applications as well: according to this article, food labels that light up when food spoils.

Another lighting innovation was funded this year with the goal to provide lighting to those off the grid. This one, called Gravity Light, is a little different, because it doesn't rely on sunlight for charging. It relies on gravity. Under its new design, a user has a pulley system to lift a weight that then pulls on the gear system inside the light until it settles back onto the ground. Users get more than 20 minutes of light each time they lift the weight.

We mentioned "safe lighting" in an earlier section of this post -- the point is that people across the globe use kerosene lamps for lighting. The fumes cause health problems and the flames cause burns and fires. Gravity Light's goal is to eliminate these problems and to provide lighting without the need to solar charge something ahead of time.

Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier" is a classical piece that many people know, even if they're not big fans of classical music. One artist decided to make the song visual with lights, demonstrating pitch and note duration with an expansive array of fluorescent lights. If you're a fan of Bach, you may want to check this one out!

Ok, this one isn't about real light bulbs. But we all need a break from time to time. This game involves lighting a virtual light bulb. It comes with 150 levels, it's free, and it has no ads and no catch. This short video review shows you how the game works so you can decide if it's the kind of game you'd enjoy while waiting in line somewhere.

On our social media channels, we've frequently pointed to articles about the way that blue lights -- from TV, computer, tablet, and phone screens -- can disrupt our sleeping patterns. They do this by effectively telling the brain it's still daytime (when nature would expose us to more blue light) and telling us to stay awake. It seems that we're signaled to wind down and get ready to sleep with shades of yellow, orange, and red, which you would get with the setting sun.

This year, Amazon came out with new "Fire" tablets featuring "Blue Shade" to address this problem. It limits your exposure to blue lights when reading at night before trying to sleep. We wouldn't be surprised to see other manufacturers following suit.

Finally, LED lights continue to dominate lighting news with stories about new manufacturing approaches, which may lower prices; built-in smart technologies; and overall adoption rate, which will continue to soar for the next decade. We carry a wide range of LED lights, including the aptly named "corn cob" LEDs, designed to replace high wattage HID bulbs.

So what did we miss? Do you have a favorite story about lighting from 2015? If so, let us know in the comments below!

So it's time to start relamping the fluorescent troffers in your business, and you have a decision to make: do you continue using fluorescent lighting, or is it time to switch to LED?

In this post, we'll take a look at the cost of replacing your current fluorescent bulbs vs. the cost and process of retrofitting with LED lights. And we'll look at the financial benefits of making the switch. In fact, there are three different approaches to the LED solution, and we'll consider them all.

Of course there are different sizes of fluorescent troffers used in business. These are typically 1x2 (feet), 2x2, and 2x4. For this post, we'll use 2x2 troffers as an example. You can apply the same concepts to the troffers in your business.

A fluorescent 2x2 troffer like this one uses two U-bend lamps, which (together) cost around $15 and may be rated for around 20,000 hours of life. They use 64 watts.

If you ran these lamps 10 hours a day only on weekdays (around 260 days per year), you would replace these lamps roughly every 7 years. And if electricity cost you 12 cents per kWh (including delivery costs), they would cost you around $20 per year to run.

Your first LED retrofit option is to retain your current fixture and replace the fluorescent bulbs with LED bulbs designed for this purpose. Philips InstantFit is one choice, and for a 2x2 fixture you would choose this sort of U-bend LED. You will need to make sure, however, that the fixture uses a compatible electronic ballast. You can see compatible ballasts for InstantFit lights in this document.

At this time, you could get two of these LEDs from us for around $40 -- a premium of around $25 over the cost of fluorescents. But the LEDs would produce all the light you need at roughly half the wattage (33 watts), so in the scenario above you would save around $10/year in energy costs, and the bulbs would pay for themselves in 2.5 years. After that, they would be money on your bottom line, and when you would normally have to relamp the whole office (after 7 years with fluorescents), the LEDs would keep on going, saving you more in labor and lamp costs. These lamps have about twice the life of the fluorescents.

Your second LED option is to remove the current fixture and entirely replace it with an LED fixture like this one from RAB. At the time of this writing, most LED 2x2 fixtures range from $100 to $300, so we'll use a price of $200 in this example.

Like the option above, an LED 2x2 produces the light you need for about half the wattage, but in this case there are likely to be more labor costs because you are removing the old fixture and putting a new one in its place. Still, once this is done, this particular model has a rated life of 100,000 hours, so it could be 35 years before you need to replace it, once again saving labor costs over time.

Once more, you're saving about $10/year in energy costs with each fixture, but with the initial costs remaining fairly high, it will take many years for it to pay off just in terms of energy savings. But you'll also save on long-term maintenance and enjoy quality lighting along the way.

A final LED option is pretty exciting because it's easy for anyone to do and potentially lasts for such a long time. In this case, you remove your fluorescent bulbs (make sure to recycle them with our boxes!) and ballast, but keep the fluorescent fixture in place. Using powerful magnets, you position a new LED fixture onto the original fixture and then further secure it with some screws. Connect the wires or simply plug in and your new LED fixture is ready to go!

Check out the process in this video:

​While this isn't quite as easy as simply plugging LED bulbs into the original fixture, it's definitely not hard and can probably be done in 10 minutes or less by most people. And once it's in place, the brand we sell is rated to last 85,000 hours, or close to 30 years in our example above.

Our current price is about $70 more than two new fluorescent U-bend bulbs, so by the time you go to replace those fluorescent U-bends in 7 years, the fixture has paid for itself and will continue putting money in your pocket over time while largely eliminating labor costs for years and years to come.

We hope this gives you some options to consider when it's time to choose between replacing fluorescent lamps and retrofitting them with LED lights. As you can see, there's still an initial investment period when it comes to LED, but this technology can more than pay for itself in time while providing a quality light.

If you have questions, as always please call Lighting Supply at 877.231.2852 for answers and to place your orders. Or visit us at LightingSupply.com to order online.