Shop Lighting from MV to MH

The ceiling is at least 25 feet. I was even thinking of installing drop florescent everywhere exept near the chain hoists.

Can you justify changeout on a cost basis? Probably not unles your cost per kwh is more than $.15 and that is even a fairly long term deal.

High bay fluorescents are becoming common. They are available in both T5 and T8 and I would recommend the T8. There is the cold start question that still taints fluorescents even when electronic ballasted.

With HID"s you would also want to consider restrike time. It could be awful scary listening to all that steel spinning down in the dark.

I think that a mix of the existing MV, some MH and FLuorescent would probably work well for you.

Since you have a building where you can use high bay lights (20+ ft) there are some other options you might consider that would pay for themselves in energy savings.

Link

This is a high bay T5 flourescent fixture that will save about 100 watts per fixture and provide more light to boot. They use rather expensive T5 bulbs (tiny 5/8 diameter) but are very efficient.

Another alternative is the sportlite, also a flourescent, but of a much different design.

Link

Just a couple of ideas. I would get away from the Mercury lamps simply because I hate them, but to justify the money, it could be hard to do except from the utility standpoint and not the dollars and cents standpoint.

Charles