What Are LED Grow Lights? 6 Reasons Why You Need To Install Them In Your Indoor Grow Room

Did you know that you can increase your indoor grow room business manifold with LED grow lights?

Indoor grow room facilities with LED grow lights have become quite popular across the States, as more people prefer indoor farming over outdoors. That’s because such farming facilities stand to maximize your profits in the long run. 

You see, it’s far less expensive to provide light, water, and nutrients to your indoor plants compared to those grown outdoors. 

Moreover, you can grow just about any crop in an indoor grow room since the controlled environment inside such a facility allows you to create the right temperature conditions. 

Interesting, isn’t it? 

There’s more to the story. 

The indoor and hydroponic farming industry has grown exponentially worldwide, reaching a market size worth $39.5 Billion. And more American states are opening their markets now for this industry than ever before. 

So if you own an indoor farming business, you’re sure to profit from this market boom. 

However, the lighting in a grow room is the most vital aspect of the cultivation. 

Since indoor plantations don’t get sunlight, you have to create a natural lighting effect for the plants to survive and grow. That is where grow lights for plants come in handy, imitating sunlight and enabling efficient growth. 

But conventional grow lights have their own problems, as they often cause overheating and even inflate your energy bills. That’s where LED grow lights come to the rescue, creating an ideal environment for your indoor plants to grow best.  

What is an LED grow light?

As you can see, you need the right kind of lighting to get the best out of your indoor grow room. 

For years lighting experts have been trying to develop grow lights that imitate sunlight and help indoor plants grow. And even as conventional grow lights powered by fluorescent and HID lamps have helped create natural lighting conditions, they cause problems for indoor growers and farmers. 

For instance, fluorescent grow lights overheat the indoor space, which harms the plantation in a significant way. Also, high utility expenses from traditional lighting have reduced profit margins in the indoor farming industry. 

So what is the solution, you may ask? 

LED-based grow lights are the perfect answer to the problems conventional lighting has caused for indoor farming. They allow you to create cooler artificial lighting, thus allowing photosynthesis to happen without any heat damage to your plantation. 

Further, LED grow lights offer you to customize indoor lighting and create effects apt for your plants. 

There are many other ways an LED grow light helps you maximize your hydroponic farming business, which we will see in detail. 

Benefits of LED Grow Lights For Indoor Farming: 

With LED grow lights you can boost your hydroponic farming business

You see, LED lamps have been around for a long time, but their use as lights for indoor plantations has begun only recently. That’s because LED grow room lamps in their initial days lacked features and only produced red and blue light. 

Since these LEDs could not match the illumination produced by traditional HPS lights, indoor cultivators didn’t look at them as a reliable alternative. In fact, it was for this reason that LEDs for grow rooms earned the nickname “Smurf Lights.”

However, with advancements in LED technology, modern grow room lamps have completely changed that perception. 

How?

With modern LED grow light colors and lighting intensity matching and even exceeding that of traditional lamps, you can now create full-spectrum illumination powerful enough for your grow room.   

That’s why indoor cultivators are quickly switching to LEDs for grow room lighting. 

LEDs have many benefits in store for your indoor growing business, so let’s have a look at them.

#1. LED Grow Lights Save Your Energy Bills 

If you’re into the indoor farming business, your biggest worry could be the high utility bills impacting your profitability. That’s because the traditional grow room lights you use are highly energy-intensive, contributing to a huge part of your grow room expenses. 

For instance, if you use HPS lights in your indoor growing facility, your energy bills will skyrocket since a 1000 Watt HPS lamp consumes 4600 kWh energy annually when running for 12 hours a day.

On the contrary, you can achieve equally effective illumination for your indoor plantation for less than half the energy cost of traditional lighting by using LED grow lights. 

Since LED grow room light turns most energy to light, the yearly energy consumption for an average-sized plantation is less than 2000 kWh. 

The difference is for you to see. 

#2. Become eligible for rebates with LED grow lights

One of the biggest advantages of switching over to LED grow lights is the rebates that energy companies offer to indoor cultivators. 

As you saw, the indoor growing business has expanded manifold here in the States. And this boom has resulted in a massive increase in demand for electricity, thus straining the grids. 

In order to cope with the strain that the indoor farming industry has put, energy companies are now offering massive rebates to cultivators switching from traditional energy-intensive lighting to LED grow lights.  

So how much rebate do you exactly get upon switching to LEDs? 

Depending on your energy provider and their local guidelines, you can get anywhere between 20 and 90 percent of your LED grow light cost refunded by the energy company. Also, you don’t need to show your cultivator license or share any other detail to avail of these rebates. All you’ve got to do is purchase grow room LED lamps. 

Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? 

You see, as the indoor cultivation industry overburdens energy companies, they’re acutely aware that conventional lighting is to blame. So incentivizing LED lights for indoor farms through rebates makes sense, as they lower the strain significantly. 

That’s precisely why the rebate you get for your LEDs depends on how energy-efficient they are. 

That means by installing high-efficiency LEDs; you stand to recover much of your lighting investment.

#3. LED grow lights emit little to no heat

Apart from being energy-intensive, the traditional grow room lights also produce a lot of heat, and the excess heat is sure to harm your indoor cultivation.

In fact, high heat emissions from traditional grow room lights like HPS are responsible for common problems like crop losses. So indoor growers, especially in the warmer regions, have to install air conditioning systems in their grow rooms.

You see, air conditioning is expensive to install and run since it needs high amounts of energy to lower your grow room temperature to optimal levels. That means you are sure to incur huge operational costs, which will reduce your profits. 

You want to earn maximum profits from your indoor growing business. Don’t you? 

LED grow lights are your best bet to minimize your losses and get the most out of your grow room. 

That’s because LEDs emit negligible heat, thus keeping your plantation safe from heat-related damages. And since the lighting doesn’t increase indoor temperatures, you don’t need extensive cooling systems. 

There you have it; a grow room lighting that reduces your operating costs and increases your profits. 

#4. You can hang LED lights close to the canopy 

You can place LED grow light fixtures close to the plants

Another advantage of LED grow lights producing lesser heat is that you can install them quite close to the canopy of your plants. Unfortunately, that isn’t possible with either HID or HPS lights since they heat their surroundings very easily. 

So if you have traditional grow room lights, you’ve to maintain more space between them and the plant canopy. 

You might wonder what difference LEDs closer to the canopy make?

Firstly, LED grow lights installed close to the canopy allow you to grow your plants vertically on the racks. That makes multi-level indoor growing operations possible, as you can grow more plants in much less space than horizontal farming. 

So a LED canopy fixture comes in handy if your space is limited or it is of a premium. Also, you can increase your indoor farming output while reducing expenses, thereby earning more profits.

In addition, by placing your grow lights close enough to the canopy, you can safely increase the amount of light that reaches the plantation. 

You see, the volume of plantation you have in your indoor facility is directly related to the intensity of lighting. So the more lighting you have up close to your plants, the better your production. 

Since traditional grow room light fixtures are installed high above your canopy, less light reaches your plants. And because light spreads to a larger area within the grow room, this leads to light spillage. 

LED grow room lighting is thus an easy fix to maximize your plantation output.  

That is impressive, isn’t it?

#5. You can create full-spectrum lighting with LEDs

Before we begin, let’s see what the light spectrum exactly means.

Plants in a natural setting receive many light wavelengths from the sun, and these have different effects on their overall growth. And a combination of wavelengths that any light source produces is called the light spectrum. 

As you can see, plants in nature receive multiple light wavelengths that help them grow well, and that’s what grow room lights do artificially for indoor plantations. 

However, LED grow lights in their heyday could produce limited wavelengths, mainly blue and red, rendering them less useful than HID lights. 

So what has changed in modern LEDs? 

You see, modern LED grow lights are advanced enough to create full-spectrum lighting, which allows you to closely imitate natural sunlight in the grow room and best-tune your plantation for each growth stage. 

Since LED dimmable downlight comes in a vast range of colors, you can mix and match them to create a light spectrum optimized for your plant growth, thus leading to higher yields.

For instance, you can use red lights to maximize flowering and blue lights for more vegetation, which isn’t possible with HID grow lights producing a fixed single light spectrum. 

Amazing, right?

#6. LED grow lights have a longer lifespan 

LEDs for indoor grow rooms fare much better than their traditional counterparts in terms of longevity, which directly impacts your operational costs. 

Let’s look at a comparison to understand this better. 

LED grow room lights generally last for 50,000 hours, which means you can use them for up to ten years. On the contrary, you need to replace traditional HPS grow room lights after every 12 months of use, and that can easily cost you $100 for an average-sized indoor plantation. So even as HPS grow lights look like a cheap option, they’re sure to be expensive in the long run. 

Clearly, with long-lasting LED grow lights, you stand to save big on your cost of operation, thus boosting your profits. 

That sounds exciting for sure, doesn’t it? 

LED Grow Lights: FAQs

#1. When should you switch to LEDs for your grow room? 

LED prices have been dropping significantly for the last ten years, which is also true for grow room lights. Also, LED technology has advanced significantly to outperform all other lighting materials in the market. 

As an indoor grower, you may think it’s good to wait for LED prices to drop further. 

However, you should know that all this while you’ll incur huge operating costs in terms of high utility bills and frequent grow light replacement.   

So it makes sense to switch to LED grow lights right now, even as their prices continue to fall. Also, you’re set to recover your LED investment by saving on utility and maintenance. 

#2. How to adapt your grow room to LEDs?

Since LEDs are known for cool lighting, you can start adapting your grow room by optimizing your air-conditioning accordingly. 

Also, LED grow lights lead to less humidity in the grow room, so you should adjust your dehumidifiers accordingly.

Further, you can move your lighting fixtures closer to the plantation, maximizing the effect of lighting on your plants and helping them grow faster.

Conclusion

The indoor grow room business is booming, and estimates suggest that by 2025 vertical farming alone will be worth $7.3 billion. 

So if you’re an indoor farmer, you want to make the most out of this boom. Don’t you?

But as you can see, the kind of lighting in your grow room plays a significant role in deciding the efficiency and productivity of your plantation. 

That’s precisely why we recommend LED grow lights to scale up your grow room business.