{"id":620,"date":"2015-02-25T11:38:20","date_gmt":"2015-02-25T15:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cwcallah\/?p=620"},"modified":"2020-10-19T14:24:30","modified_gmt":"2020-10-19T18:24:30","slug":"led-lights-status-costbenefit-and-pros-and-cons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cwcallah\/2015\/02\/25\/led-lights-status-costbenefit-and-pros-and-cons\/","title":{"rendered":"LED Lights – Status, Cost\/Benefit and Pro’s and Cons"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been receiving several inquiries recently on supplemental lighting for greenhouse production. The most common question is “Should I install LED lights to support growing?”
\nI have found one report<\/a> to be the most complete and current on this topic and wanted to share it here.<\/p>\n

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Economic Analysis of Greenhouse Lighting: Light Emitting Diodes vs. High Intensity Discharge Fixtures<\/strong> by Jacob A. Nelson and <\/a>Bruce Bugbee. <\/a>Published: June 6, 2014. DOI: 10.1371\/journal.pone.0099010. http:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosone\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pone.0099010<\/a>. Erik Runkle<\/a> at Michigan State University also summarizes some of this work in Greenhouse Product News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are some industry responses to this including this one from Inda-Grow<\/a>. And a recent USDA report is somewhat contradictory in its findings here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is a also a nice summary by Robert Morrow in Hort Science (HortScience<\/abbr> December 2008 <\/span> vol. 43 <\/span> no. 7 <\/span> 1947-1950<\/span><\/cite>) available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Nelson and Bugbee conclude;<\/div>\n
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The most efficient HPS and LED fixtures have equal efficiencies, but the initial capital cost per photon delivered from LED fixtures is five to ten times higher than HPS fixtures. The high capital cost means that the five-year cost of LED fixtures is more than double that of HPS fixtures. If widely spaced benches are a necessary part of a production system, LED fixtures can provide precision delivery of photons and our data indicate that they can be a more cost effective option for supplemental greenhouse lighting.<\/em><\/p>\n

Manufacturers are working to improve all types of lighting technologies and the cost per photon will likely continue to decrease as new technologies, reduced prices, and improved reliability become available.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
My take-away from all of this; LED’s have a higher initial cost, can have lower recurring costs, can be more effective for specific physiological benefit, and can support certain production layouts.\u00a0 But the cost\/benefit does not seem to pencil out quite yet.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been receiving several inquiries recently on supplemental lighting for greenhouse production. The most common question is “Should I install LED lights to support growing?” I have found one report to be the most complete and current on this topic and wanted to share it here. Economic Analysis of Greenhouse Lighting: Light Emitting Diodes … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “LED Lights – Status, Cost\/Benefit and Pro’s and Cons”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1174,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50620,684047],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-greenhouses-2","category-energy-on-the-farm","entry"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Chris Callahan","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cwcallah\/author\/cwcallah\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cwcallah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cwcallah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cwcallah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cwcallah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1174"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cwcallah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cwcallah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3218,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cwcallah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions\/3218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cwcallah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cwcallah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cwcallah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}