It is relatively easy to compare the cost savings from a changeover to LED lighting fixtures in an existing television studio: compare the before and after power bill.
You can make that same before-and-after power bill comparison when moving into a new building, but it's also important to look at savings realized in reduction of construction costs. However, there's a difficulty in getting a handle on what those cost savings are, because it would be an expensive exercise to draw a separate set of plans in order to estimate the structure and infrastructure costs of a studio designed for legacy fixtures versus one designed for LED lighting.
Recently, however, a situation occurred where an apples-to-apples comparison is possible to draw: a delay in construction of Griffin Communications' Tulsa affiliate KOTV's new studios gave the company an opportunity to update their previous plan when LED lighting became a viable alternative.
"Once Litepanels came out with their Sola 4 and Sola 6 daylight balance LED Fresnel fixtures, we were able to light the studios with LED fixtures with the same quality that we've previously had to rely on tungsten Fresnels for," said Steve Mulkey of Redwood Media, who did the lighting design and installation at KOTV.
Litepanels Sola family of fixtures combine Fresnel fixture directional, focusable and controllable performance with the well-known advantages of LED lighting, including using less than 10-percent of the electrical power, no noticeable shift in color throughout a 100 percent to zero dimming range, and practically no heat generation at all.
John R. Schilberg, Griffin vice president for Technology, recalled the company's thinking: "We were going to have to buy brand new lights anyway, so we were already going to be into it for the cost of fixtures. We said, 'Let's see what effect this could have for the cost of the building.' And the net effect of it was quite, had a deep ripple effect on the design of the building."
Privately held Griffin would not share dollar figures, but Schilberg described the areas of savings.
"What we found, quickly, was, if this is the new heat-load, that means we don't need as much air conditioning, and that means that because we're not going to be moving as much air conditioning, we don't need as big a duct-work, and if we don't need as big a duct-work, that means we don't need as big a studio above the grid to handle ducting."
"And if we don't need as much space above the lighting grid to handle duct-work, that means we don't have to have as tall a ceiling, which means we don't have to have as tall a roof, which means we don't need to have as much steel to go up higher, which means we don't have the weight of the additional steel, which means we don't have to add so much concrete for the foundation."
"So it wasn't just power, it was a significant ripple effect through the mechanical, electrical, plumbing and air conditioning. The ripple effect went through all those areas, and meant dramatic changes in our design, and dramatic savings on the construction."
Because KOTV has the top rated local newscasts in the market, the station wanted to make sure they wouldn't pay a price in the quality of the studio lighting and how their anchors looked.
John Quesnel, KOTV production director, remembered the first LED lighting fixtures he'd seen years before. "It was mostly a big flat pool of light, and you really didn't get kind of a twinkle in the eye, as I like to say, on the anchors."
Once he saw Sola fixtures in action, his opinion about LED lighting changed. "I reached a greater comfort level, where I thought: 'OK, now we've got more of the tools that I think are necessary to make the talent look as good as possible, and they happen to be LED lights.'"
As KOTV's apples-to-apples comparison illustrates, there are major construction cost savings to be had from designing new broadcast studios around the low energy, using low heat producing LED fixtures. KOTV's ongoing power savings are also nothing to sneeze at. Schilberg said the LED lighting has given that station an ongoing 94-percent reduction in energy costs for its studio lighting.