Did you know the most popular form of commercial lighting was never originally intended to be allowed to be available?
Way back in the Thirties, GE owned the key patents around fluorescent lighting. But they knew these would hit sales of traditional incandescent lamps – which they just happened to make rather a lot of. So they preferred to try and keep fluorescent lighting off the market. But then came the outbreak of the Second World War. Industry suddenly needed brighter, more efficient longer-lasting lighting. Which pushed fluorescent tubes into use, and by the Fifties made them more popular in the workplace.
That, however is now coming to an end. You should know by now fluorescent tubes come with some downsides. They are not environmentally friendly; mercury, glass, surface coatings and various metals are far from green. Each year, 80 million fluorescent tubes are thrown into landfill. Those tubes contains 4 tonnes of mercury. Which means this year sees the steady demise of fluorescent light. During 2023, fluorescent lighting will be withdrawn from sale in the UK and across Europe.
Here are the main dates you need to be aware of:
The big date for everyone is the 25th August, when tubes cannot be produced for sale. After that, existing supplies will need to be run down. So you will need to either rely on whatever stock of tubes you may have or upgrade your signage to LED lighting. And it makes a huge amount of sense to start your move to LED right now.
The Hidden Cost In Your Signage
While fluorescent tubes have long been a cheaper way to light your sign than traditional lamps, they are far from cheap to use. If your sign is lit up for an average of 12 hours per every day, each tube in your signage costs around £63 every year. When you realise even a small sign can have 27 tubes inside, that means you are paying nearly £1,800 each year for the lighting in your sign.
The Easy Way To Slash Signage Lighting Costs By 95%
Let’s look again at some examples. If you have a small sign using 27 tubes, these can be replaced with 91 LED modules. The amount of power your sign will use then drops from 2,268Watts to a miserly 98. Which, if your sign is lit for 12 hours each day, equates to a total annual spend on signage lighting to £77.26 each year. That’s a saving of over £1,700. If your sign is continuously lit, that saving doubles to over £3,400.
See Your Savings
We have provided a simple table below to help you get a figure around your signage lighting costs. The data is based on typical sizes of flex front signs and the lighting they contain. So it will be either the identical to your usage or very close.
You will find three signage sizes with the following data to help you understand the savings.
- The typical size of each size of sign
- The number of tubes each sign size will use
- The Wattage the tubes consume
- The energy cost, set at £0.18 per Watt
- The amount of time per day the sign is illuminated
- The annual energy cost
| Sign Size (w x h) |
No. tubes / modules |
Total Watts | Rate per KW |
Annual working time (12/7) |
Annual Cost |
Saving |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4m x 2m | 27 @70W | 2,268 | £0.18 | 4,380hrs | £1,788.00 | – |
| 4m x 2m | 91 Modules | 98 | £0.18 | 4,380hrs | £77.26 | £1,710.74 |
| 7m x 3m | 56 @ 70W | 4,704 | £0.18 | 4,380hrs | £3,708.00 | – |
| 7m x 3m | 230 Modules | 248 | £0.18 | 4,380hrs | £196.00 | £3,512.00 |
| 10m x 4m | 114 @ 70W | 6,576 | £0.18 | 4,380hrs | £7,549.00 | – |
| 10m x 4m | 462 Modules | 499 | £0.18 | 4,380hrs | £393.00 | £7,156.00 |
| Sign Size (w x h) |
No. tubes / modules |
Total Watts | Rate per KW |
Annual working time (24/7) |
Annual Cost |
Saving |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4m x 2m | 27 @70W | 2,268 | £0.18 | 8,760hrs | £3,576.00 | – |
| 4m x 2m | 91 Modules | 98 | £0.18 | 8,760hrs | £154.33 | £3,421.67 |
| 7m x 3m | 56 @70W | 4,704 | £0.18 | 8,760hrs | £7,417.00 | – |
| 7m x 3m | 230 Modules | 248 | £0.18 | 8,760hrs | £391.00 | £7,026.00 |
| 10m x 4m | 114 @70W | 6,576 | £0.18 | 8,760hrs | £15,099.00 | – |
| 10m x 4m | 462 Modules | 499 | £0.18 | 8,760hrs | £787.00 | £14,312.00 |
Save On Your Signage Maintenance Costs Too
You will make big savings when you switch to LED lighting beyond your energy bill. LED technology lasts up to 10 times longer than fluorescent tubes. So the number of times you need your signage inspected for failing lights is massively reduced too.
Act Now Before It’s Too Late
Cygnia Maintenance are the UK’s largest provider of LED conversions. Every day retailers and owners of commercial properties use our network of skilled engineers to replace the old, inefficient fluorescent tubes in their signage for modern, sustainable LED modules. And you can have us care for them too with the biggest network of signage engineers to inspect, repair and maintain your signage.