4: Guide to Warehouse Lighting

What is warehouse Lighting?

Lights used in warehouses and industrial buildings are often referred to as warehouse lighting, these buildings have high ceilings, high shelving, few windows, and large floor surfaces.

Choose the Right Warehouse Lighting

Warehouse lighting should achieve two things: enhance safety and increase productivity. The common industry accidents are trips,falls and slips.Having good warehouse lighting is the best way to reduce the risk of accidents.

There are mainly 3 options for warehouse lighting:Metal halid lights,fluorescent lights and LED lights. LED lights are the best option as its 4 most obvious advantages as below:

1.    Energy Savings Up to 60%

1PCS 150W LED UFO high bay replacing 400W Metal Halide 12hrs/day 300days/year

Saving 900kw/year  saving 62.5%          Saving 180$/year

Before(400W Metal halide light)                                                                              After(150W LED UFO high bay)

2. Reduced Maintenance Costs

Ceiling height result in significant maintenance costs. Changing a simple light bulb often involves an elaborate process, that is quite costly in both time and money. LED lights have a long lifespan of 50,000 to 100,000 hours, the maintenance can be reduced by 90%.

3. Easily Adaptable

LED lights are physically small and easily adaptable in a range of lighting applications, can also be dimmed and provide dynamic control of light, color, and distribution.

4. Enhances Workers’ Productivity

LED lights provide a brighter, better light that increases productivity and reduces workplace accidents.

Steps to Choosing the Best LED Warehouse Lighting

1. What type of Warehouse LED Lights Do I Need?
LED UFO and Linear High Bays are two of the most common types of warehouse lighting.

LED UFO High Bay designed to replace both low & high bay HIDs, Metal Halide fixtures, and High-Pressure Sodium high bays.They’re smaller and more compact than their linear fixture counterparts.

Our 150/170/190LM/W LED UFO High Bay are good choices.

LED Linear High Bay is to replace T5 and T8 tube-style fluorescent high bays and fixtures. These high bay lights have a low profile and offer great light distribution.They’re IP66 waterproof and can work in wet locations.

Our Multifunctional LED Linear High Bay are good choices.

2. What wattage and lumens do I need to replace Metal Halide or Fluorescent Lights?

Use lumens not watts, general guidelines for converting to LED wattage:

400 watts metal halide was used most widely because of its highly popular size point, and an equivalent LED lamp

will use between 150 to 200W  to produce comparable brightness. Some higher ceiling warehouses use 1000W metal halide lamp and its LED counterpart uses under 500W.

250 Watt Metal Halide, you should choose the LED lights with 10,000 to 12,000 Lumens
400 Watt Metal Halide, you should choose the LED lights with 15,000 to 25,000 Lumens
1000 Watt Metal Halide, you should choose the LED lights with 36,000 to 55,000Lumens

4 Linear fluorescent fixture comprised of 4pcs 58W T8 lamps, you should choose the LED lights with 10,000 to 15,000 Lumens

6 Linear fluorescent fixture comprised of 6pcs 58W T8 lamps, you should choose the LED lights with 15,000 to 25,000 Lumens

8 Linear fluorescent fixture comprised of 8pcs 58W T8 lamps, you should choose the LED lights with 25,000 to 35,000 Lumens

(Source: EC Directive 2005/32/EC )

3. How many lights do I need?

The amount of lights needed for the location depends on the use height and width of the area.

1) Determine a use and desired Light Distribution, ask a lighting expert for guidance, he will do photometric lighting plan and calculate Light Distribution.
2)Then we determine appropriate lumens per fixture.
3)Later we space those fixtures out for good even lighting.
4)Finally consider things like dimming and beam angles adjustment.

4. Do I need high voltage fixtures?

LED warehouse lights have these common voltage ranges, you must purchase warehouse lights only according to the correct voltage, eg AC220-265V is most popular for Europe.

5. Pick the Right Color Temperature(CCT)

3000K – too warm for warehouse, but may be good if the high bay lights are going in a restaurant or church.
4000K – natural, good for office or other areas of work.
5000K – pure white, good for large spaces and outdoors.                                                                                                                                                                        6000K – cool white.

6. What CRI do I need for Warehouse Light?
CRI is very important because it directly affects how well people see and how they discern color. Most warehouses will be fine with 70 CRI LED Lights. However, in a setting where color differentiation is an important part of everyday tasks, higher CRI 80-95 is needed.

7.Dimming solution and Motion Sensors Help with Lighting Management

Dimming warehouse lights is a great way to reduce energy and set the light level you want. It also helps you in light design by allowing you to go up in brightness and dim down to your level. Dimmable lights work on 0-10V dimmable drivers.

You can choose motion sensors to fix with lights that operate the lights as per the motion detected in the surroundings. This would significantly minimize energy costs.

8.Crossover lighting produces best results

It is ideal for your location and it provides the most efficient lighting for the area.

1)Light coming from different directions, known as crossover or overlapping light reduces shadows and evens lighting.
2)Plan lower lumen fixtures for better lighting: The lower the LEDs are placed, the better they would cover the area.
3)A few giant lights are overkill. It may be most cost effective but you’ll regret it every time you see shadows and get the blinded by looking at the sun affect.
4)Choosing lumens: The right amount of lumens is critical for the area to be perfectly lighted.