Basketball Lights

A week ago I recommend a change for our basketball lights. My recommendation was to go to LED lights which is the latest in technology for lighting.  The initial cost is more expensive approximately $4,900 .

(…..C’mon Tim, your first recommendation cost us money?….)

Well… please allow me give you some data.

The original lights prescribes (8 total) were to be HID at 1000w each, the new LED will be 550w each. The conservative estimated  savings of electricity is $5,300 over 10 years.     (..so it take us 10 years to recoup the original cost….)    NO!  because there is more:

• The HID lights have a life span of approximately 7,000 hours (291 days if left on 24/7)
• The LED lights have a life span of approximately 50,000 hours (5.7 years if left on 24/7)
• HID lights are subjective bumping and jarring and humidity, LED are not.
• Should the HID lights go off, they cannot be turned back on for 20+ minutes else they may fail, LED have no such problem.
• We can also add web based application in the future to control our lights remotely with username/passwords for the LED but not to HID.
• Furthermore it is expected that HID lights would have to be replaced every 3-4 years, whereas the LED has an expected life of 15-16+ years.
• As time marches on, HID lights will become less available as they will not be manufactured anymore thus their costs will go up and then eventually just not available forcing us to LED anyway.

There is a lot more technical data out there supporting LED and I encourage you to look it up, but I tried to keep this fairly easy to follow.

Summing up: If you add up the energy savings of LED, the regular replacement and labor costs of HID, I believe this will put us well ahead financially; thus why I recommended the LED’s.

…and no, this change will not hold up the construction process….