Normally, a hard to justify
purchase. In new installs, though, starting with
LED's wherever possible can mean running less copper wiring for the larger
ampacity work lights, and now one 20A
circuit can light the area that was normally lit by three or four 20A circuits, and won't require lamps to be replaced or
safety screens put over them like
PAR's to protect against lenses shattering. The energy savings is included, but that's not where you'll find any
ROI (return-on-investment).
In retrofits, it'll remain to be a hard sell, because they
only see the energy savings.
LED's may be green, but just like tossing solar panels on your roof, the front-end costs are high and the
ROI's are distant. I was talking with a solar contractor last summer, and he said that many homes don't pay off their solar panel installation costs until at least 10 years down the
road, and that's including the government incentives to go green.
New installs are where the savings are at. More lumens per
watt leads to fewer lighting circuits of lower ampacities, which leads to less copper for the installs, smaller branch panels, fewer
circuit breakers, smaller transformers, and smaller service installs. Those savings add up. That is, if you can go
LED almost entirely across the board.
That's where theatres futz up the works, because no roadhouses can go to
LED's without still having to be able to accommodate all of the electrical infrastructure for incandescents. The energy savings alone are hardly significant enough to make it worthwhile.