Everyone focuses on the energy savings when evaluating LED retrofits. That makes sense — 70% energy reduction is a big number. But the maintenance savings are often bigger, and almost always overlooked.
Legacy vs LED maintenance cost
| Metric | Legacy HID | LED |
|--------|-----------|-----|
| **Per fixture/yr** | $17.25 | $0.54 |
| **Reduction** | — | **97%** |
| **Lamp life** | 10-20K hrs (2-3 yr replacement) | 50,000+ hrs (10-15 yrs) |
| **Emergency call cost** | $250-$1,000 per truck roll | Near zero |
The $17.25 per fixture includes labor, materials, equipment rental, and the opportunity cost of managing the failures.
The hidden costs people miss
**Bucket truck rental:** $300-$700 per day. For a 200-fixture parking lot, that is 2-3 days of truck rental per year just for re-lamping.
**Emergency premiums:** After-hours calls run 1.5-2x standard labor rates. A single pole light outage on a Friday night costs $500-$1,000 by Monday.
**Reactive vs preventive:** Reactive maintenance costs 25-30% more than preventive programs (JLL study). But with HID, you are always reactive — lamps fail randomly.
**The true truck roll cost** includes:
What this means for a typical project
For a 300-fixture exterior LED retrofit:
| Metric | Annual Amount |
|--------|-------------|
| Energy savings | $25,000 |
| Maintenance savings | **$5,000** |
| **Total savings** | **$30,000** |
The maintenance component is 17% of total savings — and it is the most reliable number in the calculation because it eliminates an entire cost category rather than reducing one.
Why operations teams love LED
The maintenance reduction is what facility managers care about most. No more:
After an LED retrofit, lighting moves from a constant operational headache to a set-and-forget system. That is worth more than the dollar amount suggests.