Is installing occupancy sensors a good idea? Conditionally, yes. So you’re thinking, what are the conditions? Keep reading and I promise to let you know.
Let’s take a look at how occupancy sensors can save you money and have a positive impact on the environment. I’m sure we’ve all heard our parents tell us while growing up, TURN OFF THE LIGHTS! Sorry about the shouting, but that’s how I heard it when I grew up. As we got older and started paying our electric bills (for our homes and businesses) we started to understand that turning off unused lights would save us money. That’s exactly what occupancy sensors do; they turn off the lights when not needed and turn the lights on when they are needed. No more wasted light means no more wasted energy, no excess burned coal! Woohoo, you’re saving money on your lighting and producing fewer carbon dioxide emissions.
This sounds like a great idea and by this point you may be wondering why I’ve chosen to put all of these words to digital paper. I’m about to let you know.
In keeping with saving money, let’s say you’ve decided to put your money saving occupancy sensors on compact fluorescent and fluorescent lamps. Wow, now you’re really saving money with those efficient lights. Right? Well, maybe not so much. As you may know, frequent power cycling shortens the life of compact fluorescent and fluorescent lamps. Uhh, what? Turning the lights on and off repeatedly will drastically reduce the life of your CFL and Fluorescent lamps. This means the energy savings you thought you were getting are now being eaten up by lamp replacement. Now you have to recycle your burned out, mercury filled, CFL’s and buy new ones on a much shorter time line than the “10,000” hour life span.
True story: A coffee shop owner installed an occupancy sensor in the bathroom with compact fluorescent lamps. The CFL’s were being replaced once a month due to the high on/off cycling. They were paying $4 per lamp and there were 3 lamps, so $12 per month wasted on mercury filled light. I’m sure you’ve already guessed the solution; that’s right, LED lamps. The life of an LED is not affected by frequent on/off cycling. This means, the energy savings you are looking for will not be wasted on lamp replacement! Add the even longer life and lower energy usage and what do you have? A truly cost efficient solution!
So yes, occupancy sensors are a good idea when attached to the right lighting technology and yes you guessed it…LED lighting.
For more information contact the LED lighting experts at LED Source or call 866-900-4533.
Yes, really good idea about energy-saving. That’s mean save you electrical bills, your money anytime and anywhere. Aha, the same as our Occupancy Sensors LED Tube light. Thanks for your clear and fantastic essay~
Nice Article Adam… thanks for sharing!
Marcel
Occupancy sensors are in big time use all over Europe and have been for many years. I love the idea and wonder if all those European hotels use LED lights. Manynhotels won’t allow you to turn on the lights unless your room key is in a slot by the door. That way, when you leave you have to remove your room key which then turns all the lights off. This would be awesome in a home with some overrides for security, of course.
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Adam, I’m slow on the response to this, but one thing I’ve heard several times lately is that people have installed CFLs in their bathrooms and then have instructed their employees to NOT turn off the lights. Since CFLs take a few minutes to “warm up”, they don’t want the lights off since the bathroom won’t be usable when they go in. So they post signs or even tape over the light switch. People crack me up! Although it sounds funny, basically what has happened is people have bought “energy efficient” CFL bulbs and then determined that they have to leave their lights on all day… Counter-intuitive?