A 10,000 m² warehouse running 400W metal halide fixtures burns money in three places at once: raw wattage, ballast losses, and the re-lamping lift-truck labor nobody budgets for. A one-to-one retrofit with 150W UFO high bays typically cuts the lighting load by 60–65% while raising average lux on the racking face.

The math on a real project

Take 320 fixtures running 12 hours a day, 300 days a year. Metal halide at 458W system draw consumes about 528 MWh annually; 150W LED units with sensor dimming come in under 160 MWh. At $0.14/kWh that is roughly $51,000 a year back in the operating budget — before counting the eliminated lamp changes at $40 per lift per fixture.

Three specification traps to avoid

First, do not buy on wattage — buy on delivered lumens and beam angle for your racking height. Second, insist on LM-80 files for the actual chip batch, not a generic datasheet. Third, if you run high-speed conveyor scanning or CCTV, specify flicker-free drivers; cheap PWM dimming will strobe on camera.

Send us your rack layout and mounting height, and our team will return a free DIALux layout with a payback table for your local tariff.