What are high bays lights used for?

warehouse LED

What are the issues for lighting large indoor spaces?

To be illuminated efficiently, it is important for department stores, factories or warehouses to have installed powerful lighting to cover ideally all the space (vertical and horizontal). Most of the times, those areas have a high ceiling. That’s why the fixture has to be powerful, and the light needs to diffuse a decent colour rendering to see the products in the natural way possible. Besides, the employees working in such areas need to work in safe places.

In that regard, High-pressure discharge lamps (HID/HPI) and High pressure sodium lights has been solutions for applications with high ceilings. They have their merits. However huge improvements have been done regarding conventional illuminations.

These are the issues entities are confronted when it comes to brighten those applications:

The lifetime of the fixtures must be the longest possible
Use as less energy as possible to reduce maintenance and energy costs

Lighting in industry can increase drastically the warehouse’s energy invoices for a company. Thus, the aim here is to allow the employees to have a safe environment for working by using an energy-efficient light as cost-effective as possible.

lighting highbay

LED high bay vs HID/HPI high bay

HID lamps are used for these areas of applications. With this technology, the light output and color rendering are low and inefficient on long term. Furthermore, it takes a certain amount of time before the light is on fire (15 to 30 minutes sometimes) without mentioning the flickering during start-up. Moreover, there’s the heat build-up with HID lights. Sometimes it can drop down of 70% of its capacity after 10000 hours. Besides, the lifespan of these lamps is low and they operate with a ballast…So, if the ballast is damaged, it’s even more work. In terms of maintenance and energy costs, it’s obviously not the best option. They are expensive to sustain, can block a production line and not safe for the environment.

Led high bay vs HPS and fluorescent lights

HPS(High Pressure Sodium) is another technology that have been installed in warehouses or factories. This comes with a low temperature colour in general and a bad colour rendering. In addition to that, it needs a warm-up period to be at its best. Fluorescent lights are also appropriate to be installed in high-ceiling installations. Such as T12, T5 or T8 which are chosen for these applications. But the downside of it was the toxic elements include in those tubes and the decreasing lifetime regarding performances needed for this kind of applications.

LED efficiency for large indoor spaces

There are several issues we could always point regarding lighting in industrial areas or in warehouses. This types of areas are large-scale energy consumers which the large amount of time in the way lights need to be used. We’ve pointed above the negatives point with others solutions to enlighten those applications. As far as LED is concerned, it’s the best way to help in that regard, know the advantages of LED technology. Let’s see the benefits LED provides with it :

Lights up immediately, no warm up time
Light output more effective, no loss of energy
Longer lifespan
Average lifetime of 50000 hours
Dimmable
Sensors
60% energy savings
Rated average lifetime
Fast return on investment

In other terms with LED high bays you are a winner at every point. You will decrease maintenance requirements, improves lighting quality and increase energy efficiency. Last but not the least, it helps to have a safer environment for the workforce in warehouses or industrial areas.