Executive says LED bulbs use up to 50 per cent less power

Businesses and individuals switching to Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting will realize immediate savings on their electricity bills, an executive of a Barbados-based lighting company has said.{{more}}

Jim Forde, chief executive officer of Caribbean LED Lighting Company, spoke of the benefits of LED lighting last week during the launch of the new franchise.

Forde told entrepreneurs and energy consultants that LED lighting can reduce energy consumption by up to 50 per cent.

“If you change over your lights to LED its immediate savings,” Forde said.

“If you’ve got an operation where you’re running lighting 24 hours a day, we will show you that the payback can be months.”

Forde said a number of businesses in Barbados that have retrofitted to LED lighting, including his, and are showing vast savings on their electricity bills.

Forde also said LED lights are easy to install and maintain, improve light quality and can be mixed and matched with other lighting fixtures.

“So, if you can cut 50 per cent of your lighting bill, that’s a big chunk of your total bill,” Forde said.

He pointed out that his products were Underwriters Laboratory certified, and had a life expectancy of 50,000 hours, the equivalent of about 17 years, and his company offers a five-year warranty on the lights.

“Five-year warranty basically means that unless you’ve hit it with a hammer or driven over it with a truck, if it doesn’t work within the first five years, we will replace it. These things work, and they work for a long time.”

Forde, also an advocate for renewable energy, said that the Caribbean region is blessed with the wind and sun, and that the region can play a major part in reducing the negative impact on the environment, by becoming energy efficient.

“We feel very strongly that renewable energy is the future. Energy efficiency right now is critical, because it’s no sense in not reducing and just trying to fuel the power demands through conventional means, so if you can reduce your demand and then go renewable you got an optimum solution.

“LED and renewable energy is optimization. It’s being smart with what’s available right now. It’s all about doing more with less, less consumption, more and better light we think it’s smart and very efficient,” he said.