When it comes to conventional lighting sources, the components and manufacturing of various lighting were standardized in such a way that the brightness of a light source was dictated by its watts.
One would naturally think, for instance, that a 100W bulb would be brighter than a 250W light.
What if it were possible for these to be equal, though?
The use of watts to measure brightness has been rendered obsolete by the development of LED lighting.
The cause? Wattage is only a measurement of the amount of energy required to generate a specific amount of light.
The wattage needed to power LEDs is falling while retaining similar outputs as a result of how efficient and advanced they are becoming.
In the aforementioned example, which is actually describing our 100W LED parking lot fixtures, which are equivalent to 250W MH,
But what advantage can a lower wattage offer?
Less electrical energy is used when a fixture is powered by fewer watts. This causes a significant decrease in power usage over time, which results in more energy savings!
By switching to LED, there are also some state and federal rebates available, which can eventually result in even greater savings!
So how is brightness assessed, then?
Lumens are used to measure how much light is projected on a space instead of wattage, which is no longer utilized to calculate brightness.
A standardized measurement called a lumen measures how much light is present on a surface at any particular time. A typical 60W A19 incandescent light bulb, for instance, produces roughly 800lm.
We can keep those 800lm while only using 15% of the required wattage by switching to a 9W A19 LED Light Bulb.
Lumens are a more precise assessment of the light output to anticipate from a specific fixture because LED technology is continually developing and increasing efficiency.
