Best LED High Mast Lighting – Buyer’s Guide

High mast lighting provides proper illumination for the large outdoor areas such as airport, highway, terminal, stadium, parking lot, seaport, shipping yard. LED is a very common light source for these purpose because of its high energy efficiency, flexibility and durability. Besides, the best high mast lighting system should have proper lux level, lighting uniformity and color temperature. Let’s explore how to select the best lighting for high mast poles and why should we replace the metal halide, mercury vapor and HPS with LED lights.

LED High Mast Lighting Design

1. Power & Lux Level (Brightness) Calculation

According to Texas Department of Transportation High Mast Lighting Guide, the mounting height of the luminaries is at least 100 ft. To calculate the power of high mast tower lights required, we need to know the lighting requirement first. In general, it takes approx. 300 to 500 lux for recreational sports field, and 50 to 200 lux for airport apron, seaport and outdoor industrial areas.

For instance, if the lux level is 300 for a community football field, the lumen needed = 300 lux x 7140 sq. meter = 2142000 lm; hence, the estimated, minimum power required = 15000W. The actual value increases with the height of mast. To get a more accurate and complete photometric analysis, please feel free to contact our engineers at email beatus@ledsmaster.com

2. High Lighting Uniformity for Better Coverage

The best high mast lighting system should give illumination with high uniformity. It indicates the ratio between minimum to average, or minimum to maximum. We can see the maximum lighting uniformity is 1. However, we can seldom achieve such the maximum value because of inevitable light scattering and projection angle of the luminaries. Lighting uniformity of 0.7 is already exceptionally high because this is for professional stadium holding international matches such as FIFA World Cup and Olympics.

For the parking lot, airport and seaport, 0.35 to 0.5 would be appropriate. Why do we need to have uniform illumination? It is because the uneven bright & dim spots would cause eye fatigue, and it might be quite risky if some crucial areas are not bright enough. We provide you with free photometric lighting design (DIALux or RELUX) according to the flood plan and lighting requirement, and thus you can always get the best lighting system for the high mast towers.

3. Anti-glare

Anti-glare lighting reduces the dazzling effect. This feature is especially important for road users. The blinding lights may increase the reaction time and lead to disastrous consequence. Our LED lights are equipped with built-in anti-glare lens that reduce the glare up to 50%, which improve safety and user experience.

4. Solar Powered Mast Lighting

Besides, we can add the solar powered panel to high mast lighting, which convert daylight energy into electrical energy. Depending on the power of the LED lights, the fully charged battery can last for 3.5 to 5 hours, which saves energy and helps protect the environment.

5. Color Temperature

Yellow (~2700K) and white light (5500K) have their own advantage. Yellow light is more comfortable to see, which is beneficial for workers who are constantly exposed to the artificial lighting in the workplace. However, white light allows us to see the real color of the objects. Depending on your need and application, we will help select the proper color temperature.

6. Avoid Light Pollution

Significant light scattering and reflection will cause light pollution and affect the neighboring residential areas. Our LED lights have premium optics and lighting design that reduce the light pollution in the greatest extent. The precise luminaries positioning and physical barn doors prevent the light beam from travelling to the unnecessary area.

Specifications of High Mast Lighting System

Power: 100 to 10000 watt (Replaces 400, 1000 watt, and up to 40000 watt metal halide and mercury vapor lights)

Lumen Output: 14,000 to 1,400,000 lumens

Light Angle: 25°, 40°, 60°, 90°

CRI: 80

Life Span: 80000 hours

Price: Please feel free contact us at email beatus@ledsmaster.com

Running Cost of LED High Mast Lighting System

Apart from the lamp cost, we need to know more about the cost of running the high mast lighting. Sometimes we may need to have up to 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 lumens lighting. The wrong selection of luminaries will double, triple or 10x your electricity cost. The way to identify the energy efficiency is looking at the luminous efficiency having the unit of “lumens per watt” or “lm/W”. The halogen light has 10 to 20 lm/W, HID has 60 to 80 lm/W, while LED has 120 to 140 lm/W, which means under the same power consumption, LED lights give brighter illumination.

For the 10000W LED high mast lights, the running cost = 10000W x 8 hours x $0.12/1000 = $9.6 daily, and $288 monthly. If you use halogen flood lights, this value will be 10 times higher because of its lower energy efficiency.

LED Replacement for HID, HPS and Mercury Vapor Lights

1. LED is More Energy Saving

LED is the perfect match of high mast lighting because of its high lumen output. For the same brightness requirement, LED always use less energy than metal halide, HPS or other conventional lights because of its overwhelming luminous efficacy. It indicates how many lumens produce per each watt power consumption. Our LED lights have 130 lumens per watt, which is about 2 times of the HID, and even 10 times of halogen bulbs.

2. Less Maintenance When Comparing to HID Lights

Selecting the durable luminaries save your maintenance cost. Since the high mast lighting is mounted on the tower up to 30 to 50 meters height, they are susceptible to damage due to inclement weather. Our outdoor LED lights have IP66 waterproof function, which is able to withstand heavy rain and thunderstorm. Our LED can even operate at -45°C, which is suitable for countries that often snow.

Besides, LED has the remarkable 80000 hours life span, which means the light lasts for at least 25 years if you turn them on for 8 hours per day. Since the installation cost is sometimes comparable to the price of the lamps, adopting the lights having exceptionally long service life in high mast tower can save your costly maintenance cost and precious time.

3. Better Lighting Control

Our outdoor high mast LED flood lights support DALI dimming and DMX control, which assist the user to adjust the brightness with ease. Please feel free to contact our engineers for more support by filling in the form. We customize the best high mast lighting system for you.