Energy-saving LEDs illuminate hospital

High energy savings and a good colour rendering were achieved by replacing the high-pressure sodium installation with light-emitting-diode (LED) floodlights at the Tygerberg Hospital, in Cape Town, says lighting manufacturer BEKA Schréder sales engineer Grant Kemp.

“High masts were installed around the hospital, providing general area lighting. Previously, these were fitted with 400 W high-pressure sodium (HPS) floodlights, which emitted a yellow light, owing to the poor colour rendering. As part of a cost-saving drive, the Western Cape Department of Health decided to replace these floodlights with LED floodlights,” explains Kemp.

He notes that an energy saving of 50% was achieved by replacing the 400 W HPS floodlights with 216 W OMNIstar-midi floodlights.

The OMNIstar-midi is the smaller-sized floodlight in BEKA Schréder’s OMNIstar range. The various optical solutions make it a very versatile floodlight, ensuring the correct lighting for the area to be illuminated.

Kemp mentions that it is a cost-effective and efficient lighting solution that maximises energy savings and reduces maintenance costs in high-power applications.

Moreover, because the 216 W OMNIstar-midi floodlight has been locally designed and manufactured, it takes Africa’s harsh environments and conditions into account, thereby ensuring a long lifetime.

BEKA Schréder marketing manager Grant Combrink says some of the advantages of using LED lights are that they do not have the environmental issues associated with using traditional lighting solutions such as fluorescent or mercury vapor lamps or luminaires.

“Both traditional solutions contain mercury and, thus, require special handling at the end of the product’s rated life span – these considerations are not necessary with LEDs.”

He explains that LEDs emit most of their energy in the visible section of the light spectrum, a small amount in the infrared section (spectrum) and virtually none in the ultraviolet (UV) section. This means that LEDs can safely and reliably illuminate UV-sensitive items, such as art, which will degrade over time if exposed to the energy emitted by traditional lighting products.

“Quality LEDs emit almost little to no forward heat, while traditional filament lamps convert more than 90% of the total energy used to power them directly into heat. That means only 10% of the energy powering filament lamps is used for light, which also makes them extremely inefficient, compared with LEDs.”

Another significant advantage of LEDs is their longer life span, adds Combrick. The average LED lasts for 50 000 operating hours to 100 000 operating hours. That is two to four times longer than that of most fluorescent, metal halide and even sodium lamps. It is also more than 40 times the life span of the average filament lamp.

“Less frequent replacement means two big things: lower maintenance costs in terms of labour and lower costs in terms of replacements.”

He adds that LEDs generally use very little electrical power compared with traditional lighting solutions. When comparing the energy efficiency of different lighting solutions, the terms luminous efficacy or useful lumens are used interchangeably to measure the total amount of visible light. These terms essentially describe the amount of light emitted per unit of watts or power used by the lamp or luminaire.