It can be hard to visualize how much you're spending on your current lights vs. how much cash you would free up if you switched to LED. Electricity is a big part of the budget drag, but it's not the only way that your existing lighting is costing you every year.

We've created an infographic to make the spending—and saving—more obvious. 

Where Your Annual Lighting Budget Goes (Before and After Upgrading to LED)

Real-World Savings Example

A car dealership overhauled its lighting all at once—indoors, outdoors, all of it. This meant replacing over 130 parking lot lights, a dozen wall packs on their building facade, 48 high bay lights in their service bays, and the ceiling lighting in their showroom and offices.

Here's how their annual light spend broke down with their existing lights:

Lighting Energy $288,000
HVAC Energy $29,000
Maintenance $42,000
Replacement Lamps $11,000
Recycling $3,800
Total Lighting Costs $373,800


In the upgrade, they replaced over 530,000 Watts of light with 205,884 Watts. Here's what that did for their budget:

Lighting Energy $111,000
HVAC Energy $26,000
Maintenance $7,500
Replacement Lamps $11,000
Recycling $750
Total Annual Savings (~58% of original lighting budget!) $217,542


The company was able to use the energy savings to pay back the full costs of the new lights, the labor to install them, and the recycling costs for their old lights. Because they financed the upgrade, they were able to make the monthly payments out of the money that had been freed up from their old lighting budget, so that, in the end, the lighting upgrade didn't cost them a dime over and above what they were already spending.

After three years, they owned the lights free and clear, and all future savings were theirs to pocket.

Because the lights were all warrantied for 5 years, the dealership knows they'll receive a guaranteed savings during the period between paying off their lights and the end of the warranty. That alone will be worth around $435,000. The lights, all rated for an average of 50,000 hours, will in all likelihood run for another 5 years beyond their warranty, saving the company well over a million dollars over the life of the lights, even after factoring in the costs from the initial lighting install.

ELEDLIGHTS.com has helped many businesses switch over to LED lighting. Contact us today to learn how much your business could save. Text or call our East Coast facility at 215.355.7200 or our West Coast facility at 858.581.0597 or email sales@eledlights.com today.