By now I think we will all agree that LED’s offer an assortment of benefits when employed in an industrial or commercial/ office setting. By these same metrics, schools and School Districts should be looking to LED lighting to not only seek the same benefits, but additional gains that apply in an educational setting.
Here are Three major ways in which your schools can benefit from LED lights:
1. Savings:
Every year, a schoolboard is charged with making, revising, and approving a budget. A dubious task indeed, but very necessary. Imagine going into the budget process knowing that you have reduced your lighting costs by 60-70% and have reduced your overall electricity usage by 20-25%. That would be significant for one school, but if you extrapolate that across an entire school district, how much money are you freeing up in operating expenses? Included in the savings, and not to be overlooked, are Maintenance Costs. If it feels like your maintenance department is devoting significant time every day to changing fluorescent or incandescent bulbs, it is because they probably are. On average, a fluorescent bulb will last 24,000-30,000 hours, while an equivalent LED will operate for 40,000- 50,000 hours. By doubling the life of your bulbs, you have just reduced maintenance costs on those lights by up to 50% and have freed up man hours to devote to other projects and processes.
2. Increased Productivity and Test Scores:
There are studies that go back over ten years, at this point, showing that deploying solid state LED lighting, with their ability to control brightness and color temperature, actually increases productivity and learning, in comparison to fluorescent bulbs. Not only is student focus and learning impacted positively, but it has also been shown that a combination of white and blue LED light, calculated to mimic daylight, contributed to test errors decreasing by up to 30%.
“Results supported the perception of higher correlated color temperature lighting positively impacting alertness, attitude, and energy level. Findings also supported the ability to change light levels throughout the school day to positively impact student engagement and mood.”
**Morrow, Brenda & Kanakri, Shireen. (2018). The impact of fluorescent and led lighting on students attitudes and behavior in the classroom. 10.24105/apr.2018.5.15.
See entire study here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329637078_The_impact_of_fluorescent_and_led_lighting_on_students_attitudes_and_behavior_in_the_classroom
“The simulation results … were as follows, students were more satisfied with LED brightness than with fluorescent brightness (25% Increase), … light from the LED provided more psychological stability (30%Increase), LED fluorescence created a more positive learning environment (25% Increase), learning improved with LED lamps than with fluorescent lamps (25% Increase), and LED lamps created more a positive feeling than fluorescent lamps. (25% Increase)”
***International Journal of Multimedia and Ubiquitous Engineering Vol.9, No.3 (2014), pp.309-316
http://dx.doi.org/10.14257/ijmue.2014.9.3.29
See full study: https://gvpress.com/journals/IJMUE/vol9_no3/29.pdf
3. Lower Stress and Anxiety:
Fluorescent lights have long been linked to eyestrain, migraines, as well as increased stress and anxiety for many people who work and learn under them. LED lights have proven their ability to reduce stress and anxiety, while also helping to elevate one’s mood. It is within your power to continue to create the best possible learning environment for your students and the best working environment for your teachers, coaches and administrators.
We all want the best for all who work in and attend our schools. We know that the emotional, and physical wellbeing of students and staff are a cornerstone to a successful learning environment. The next major building block is the ability to extract the best and highest level of performance that each student has within them. As Administrators, you have the opportunity to significantly affect both, simply buy choosing LED lights for your campuses. At EnergyWare, we have delivered that opportunity to not only primary and secondary schools, but to prestigious universities as well. We will help design and implement the best solution for your campus, be it one building or fifty. Please visit our website to see how we have helped others and reach out to us so we may collaborate with you on your LED project.
