Why LED Lights Are The Better Choice For Office Lighting

Last updated on December 12, 2023

Although they’ve been used for far longer, traditional lights are not the only option to illuminate office spaces. These lights tend to consume high power and can cause glare on screens, which may annoy and distract employees.

Several office managers have upgraded their spaces using LED lights, which offer numerous advantages compared to traditional lamp types.

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Most notably, the energy-saving properties and their ability to create a pleasant and comfortable environment inside an office make LED lights more suitable. This article will highlight the seven main reasons which make LED lights a better choice for office environments. The reasons are:

LED Lights Produce Natural Light

Since employees spend a large portion of their day in an office, office lighting is an essential element in the space that often influences the employees’ mood, perception and performance.

A study by the American Society Of Interior Design shows that 68% of workers or employees complain about the lighting in their office, which can result in almost 10% loss in worker productivity.

LED lights are capable of producing light output that mimics natural light, is soft on the eyes and has a high CRI. Businesses using LED lights note significant improvements in productivity among the staff as these lights create an excellent environment for employees.

Moreover, the fact that LED lights can create such a positive effect on the space and employees, at a fraction of the energy used by traditional sources, make these solutions more sustainable and highly suited for office environments.

Also read: LED lights for Small Businesses: Everything you need to know

LED Lights Save Energy And Money

One of the significant reasons managers use LED lights in offices is to cut down on electricity bills. Compared to traditional lamps such as fluorescent bulbs, LED lights consume approximately 20% of the energy consumption to produce the same or improved quality of lighting.

The capacity to save 80% on energy, reflects in an 80% cash saving on the lighting electric bill. And with worldwide energy costs on the rise, energy-saving LED lights have become the best alternative for offices.

This significant difference in energy consumption is due to the physics of traditional and LED lights. With traditional lights, only 20% of the power consumed is turned into light output, while 80% of the energy is converted to heat loss that is generally dissipated in the office.

LED lights on the other hand convert almost all the energy consumed into light output, with no heat loss.

LED Lights Have A Long Life

Traditional light sources tend to burn out rapidly, are usually fragile and break easily, which leads to frequent and expensive bulb replacement. Alternatively, LED lights are resistant to vibrations, shocks and other external forces such as vandalism, and can therefore avoid or greatly reduce the need for constant bulb replacement.

Moreover, LED lights have long life spans of up to 50,000 and even 80,000 hours – almost five times longer than the average life of compact fluorescents and around 30 times longer than that of incandescent bulbs – guaranteeing a long life and a much less frequent need for replacement.

This also translates in further minimizing the need to replace the bulbs

LED Lights Are Environmentally Friendly

Given LED lights are semiconductors, they do not contain any toxic chemicals which might harm employees or negatively affect the environment.

Unlike fluorescent bulbs which contain mercury and may cause a health hazard to employees if damaged, LED lights are completely environmentally friendly.

Additionally, one LED light emits 514 lbs of CO2 per year, which is far lower than the carbon emissions of incandescent bulbs. LED lights are also recyclable, which lowers landfill waste disposal and eliminates pollution to the environment.

LED Lights Produce Less Heat

Businesses owners are adopting more LED lights in their offices because they have a low operating temperature, unlike traditional sources of light. Heat emitted from traditional bulbs usually dissipates within the office environment raising the temperature of the space, creating an uncomfortable environment for the employees.

To offset the temperature rise, air conditioning systems work at higher cooling capacities, thereby consuming more power, and further raising the electric bills. Using LED lights removes the discomfort and the increased energy expenditure from the extra air conditioning, and the additional burden on the electricity bills.

LED Lights Don’t Attract Insects

Old incandescent lights are attractive to moths and bugs because they dispense heat and UV rays, drawing insects into office spaces towards the light. LED lights do not emit UV rays and produce insignificant amounts of heat, making them far less attractive to insects, and adding a further advantage for office managers to use them.

Also read: Do LED Bulbs Attract Insects and Bugs?

LED Lights Operate In Harsh Climates

You can readily use LED Light products in extreme climates, like cold or low-temperature settings. Unlike traditional lights which produce dim levels in extreme temperatures, LED lights give superior lighting. They are also designed to withstand harsh conditions without burning out or breaking.

Additionally, LED lights offer instant illumination when switched on. Compared to traditional sources that have a long warm-up time before illuminating the entire space, LED lights allow instant light.

LED lights are energy-efficient, produce a better quality of light, have a long life, need to be replaced less often and can operate in harsh weather conditions. These features, among many others, make LED lights a great choice for office spaces.

Tips For Better Office Lighting

It might not be obvious, but office lighting directly affects a person’s mood and overall productivity. This is not just limited to the home office or writing rooms, but more significantly to office spaces, considering the amount of time people spend in the office.

Research has shown that poorly and improperly lit offices can lead to a decline in productivity, increased absenteeism, and increased risk of accidents. Such studies drove business owners towards using types of LED lighting to create a difference in their offices and in the health of their employees.

If you are planning to replace the bulbs in your workplace to improve the lighting, it is important to consider the purpose of the lights. For example, task lighting and ambient light are used in very different situations.

Task light is used to create visibility in specific areas and is located according to the space to avoid glare. On the other hand, ambient lighting is used to spread light to the entire space during business hours and act as a background light. This article highlights some tips on how to make your office lighting more efficient.

1. Retrofit LED Lights and Maximise Natural Light in Office

Flickering, inconsistent light quality and buzzing are common office lighting problems that arise from using lighting sources which are far from ideal for the space.

To improve the lighting in the office, traditional light sources such as fluorescent bulbs or HID lamps should be replaced with LED lights. LED lights eliminate the issues of light inconsistency and flickering and produce more uniform and natural light into the office space.

Although they have higher initial costs, they are cost-effective in the long run compared to fluorescent lights.

LED lights require low maintenance and have a long lifespan of up to 50 000 hrs, which is 20,000 hours longer than the average fluorescent bulb. This translates into major savings on bulb replacement compared to traditional sources of light.

To increase natural light within the space, make sure that the windows are not blocked by furniture or blinds and wherever possible, arrange the workstations to be near the windows.

2. Choose Low-Intensity Lighting

Business cultures have driven people to spend long hours working in office spaces, which necessitates having a productive and peaceful environment. This environment can be achieved by replacing current traditional lights with low-intensity LED lights.

Low intensity LED lights are greatly suitable for spaces where employees spend long hours. Offices operating five days a week benefit from ambient light as it produces low light intensity that is neither too bright nor too dim.

3. Adapt The Lighting to The Space

Lighting in an office space has to adapt to the purpose of the space. For example, there is no need to use a high-output powerful overhead lamp in a room that only requires light in the immediate surrounding of the work area.

Where light is only required for the work or desk area, task lighting such as desk lamps are far more appropriate to use instead of an overhead light. These types of light highlight the work area more effectively and save on the energy required to illuminate the entire room.

Additionally, when using the right light for the proper purpose, as in a LED desk lamp, the direct surroundings will be properly illuminated without interfering with bright lights from overhead lights, therefore reducing eye strain.

4. Use Colored Lighting

One of the simplest and most effective ways to make your office lighting stand out is to use colored lights to highlight specific areas of the office.

High quality colored lighting can draw the attention of your office, create an office design that is inline with your brand and reinforce your brand values to create a memorable first impression.

LED light is the most suitable type to use, as it offers a variety of colors. Installing colored LED lights with a functional control system allows users to easily change the mood in the office and create different settings for different situations. This gives users the option of making the space alert and ready for action, or calm and ready to sleep.

Additionally, using a light blue color allows employees to maintain their focus for long periods of time. Alternatively, changing the color to yellow boosts creativity and enhances communication and exchange of ideas between your employees in the office, and lifts up the office mood.

5. Install a Lighting Control System

A lighting control system helps regulate the quantity of lighting in the different office areas, and ultimately the energy consumed by the spaces. The control settings give the user more control of the light output, mood and ambiance of the office space.

Lighting control systems can ensure that lighting in areas that are not regularly used in the office, such as meeting rooms, corridors and restrooms are either dimmed or turned off.

Coupled with LED lights, lighting control systems can provide great benefits for office spaces, in terms of energy reduction and space control.

In offices with high brightness levels and glare issues on screens, a lighting control system helps solve these problems by dimming down or turning off uncomfortable light sources, instead of the standard solution of maintaining all the lights on and blocking natural light from the space.

Also read: Home Energy Monitor: Smart way to monitor energy consumption

6. Include Corrective Lighting in Your Office

Glare from computer screens is a common problem in office spaces and is often a root cause for eye strain and discomfort.

Using glare-reduction office lighting – corrective lighting – such as dual-purpose lights within the spaces can effectively solve the issue. Placing correction lighting directly behind a screen or computer monitor will eliminate a large percentage of the glare without having to block natural light.

Corrective lighting can also be used to balance out different regions of the workstation in order to create a progression between them.

7. Use Task Lamps

If your office lacks sufficient natural light, you can consider adding LED task fixtures to the employees’ desks. LED task lamps provide bright lighting mimicking natural light where you need it. Task lamps are most suitably placed at the edges of the workspace and pointed in a proper direction to avoid glare.

Conclusion

Lighting is one of the first mediums that affect customers entering a space, and can play a decisive role in their first impression of the office. If the lighting in the office is planned or installed incorrectly, it may deplete the energy of the employees, cause eye problems and discomfort and reduce productivity.

Installing LED task lamps increase natural light, corrective LED lamps reduce glare, lighting control systems save energy and control the space and using colored LED lights highlight and enhance the office.

These are some of the measures that can be applied to enhance the office pace, its mood and effect on employees. Designing office lighting requires special attention to the purpose behind each area. If you have not yet adopted LED lights for a clear improvement of your office lighting, start the journey today.

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