Influence of smart lighting control on the lifetime of high power LED luminaires

Abstract

Abstract LED lighting and smart controlling can decrease the consumption of electric power in zero or positive energy buildings. This study demonstrates that cyclic dimming, which appears in smart controlling, e.g. through occupancy sensing, might have an effect on the luminaire lifetimes and failure rates. Two different types of LED luminaires were aged in 30-s cycled dimming and undimmed modes. The manufacturer-specified lifetimes for both luminaire types were 100 000 hours. For one of the luminaire types, four out of five cycled units failed before 30 000 operating hours. For the uncycled luminaires, the lifetimes estimated from the measurements were over 100 000 hours. For the other type, the estimated lifetimes were 75 000 hours and 64 000 hours for uncycled and cycled luminaires, respectively.