We recently moved into a Teton 5th-wheel at our basecamp. We found we had inherited 14 fluorescent fixtures in the ceiling, each containing two F15T8 tubes. Each fixture used 30watts of power to produce an effective output of 1,100 lumens of light.
If we turned on all the lights at the same time, we produced 15,400 lumens of bright white light along with using 4.2Kilowatts per hour. At the current price middle of August of nearly 20cents per kwhr, that came to $0.84 per hour. But at least half of that was wasted in heat, and it took three times as much power to get that extra heat out of the rig ($1.26), so our real cost for all that light was $2.10 per hour!
If this seems to be crazy, it is. First, we would not usually want all that light. So we could turn off some of the light fixtures. That would save some of the power consumption. But when I look around me, I still see 9 of the fixtures turned ON. Then I notice that those fixtures producing the light are all focused on specific areas, and the light is not spread out evenly the way I would want it.
A better solution is to reduce the amount of light coming from each fixture. But with fluorescents, you must power both tubes, and both will be using energy.
I made the remarkable decision that I should replace some of the fluorescent lighting with LED lighting using our MyT.fLEDescent product.
My first attempt was to put a single 12inch strip of MyT.TL2R light strip into a fixture to replace the two F15T8 tubes. The lumen rating of this light strip is 480 lumens, but at least it is all directed downward into the room. I was amazed when I found that the amount of light provided from each fixture was quite sufficient. The rig had been over-lit.
Each of the lightstrips uses 5watts of power (only 17% of the power required by the fluorescents) for the same fixture, and the power used to generate heat is less than 15% of that total. So the heat that must be exhausted by the air conditioning requires less than 3% of the total power usage. Suddenly, our power consumption with all lights ON dropped from $2.10 per hour to $0.15 per hour (for 0.75kilowatts).
The result is that I could be looking at as much as a 93% reduction in the operational cost of my lighting. Now is the time to charge forward and replace all the lights with LEDs.
Sam Penny, the Prudent RVer
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