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How do you like it?
I see at least three problems here:

1. The active cooling fan won't probably last 40,000 hrs. (rated lamp life). The lamps should be used in enclosed fixtures only but small bugs seem to conquer all kinds of streetlights (maybe except of very new, perfectly sealed lanterns - but this is an old MV replacement!). This might stop the ventilation working.
2. The efficacy will be lower when used with a mercury ballast (the losses here are inevitable). And most linemen would ignore that factor - while in a hurry they won't bother with disconnecting the ballast.
3. While LEDs are high efficiency ones, the omnidirectionality of the bulb kills the main advantage of LEDs - a good half of them will be directed to an old dirty reflector.

It is not hard to be more efficient than Mercury lamp. This one sure puts up way more light for less Watts. But questions i'd ask right away are :

 - Why was the lamp not upgraded long ago to MH (or SON where no White light is required) ? CMH lamps can reach same or better efficacy than this LED lamp, with non comparably better light quality and spectral properties, and lamp shape more suitable to work with the existing luminaire

 - Was the Mercury lamp in that location preferred for its spectrum (i.e. plant lighting) ? If so, it is one of the special applications where no other lamp of any type can be an appropriate substitute

 - If the luminaire is very old, what is its condition ? If the luminaire is deteriorated it makes more sense to replace it to a brand new luminaire, than to hack into it any lamp that will still give poor performance because of the lumianire



As for the lamp :

The fan will get clogged in no time in an open luminaire, mainly by insects flying to the ligth. Might survive better in an enclosed one (it will eventually getter all the dust inside, no more dust untill the luminaire is opened again)

The fan power draw would be probably <1W, so not significant effect on the lamp power

The current through the ballast will be lower than usual, so the losses in it quite low even if it is left in. Order of couple Watts. Actually, HID ballast efficacy is not that bad even with their original lamp - For Mercury lamp it really is the lamp and not the ballast that is the limiting factor anyway

The non omnidirectional LED designs usually dont have all that good optics either, see some of the monstrosities out there. New HID lumianire (or even non new one, but modern design and well maintained) will outperform both retrofit and non retrofit LED lighting devices
 

I can expect that I won't see any of these here because nearly all MV fixtures are bucket lights.

Nobody prevent you from screwing this into a bucket light. Except it will fail within couple weeks from insects flying to the ligth and getting sucked into the fan

Unless there is a thermal protection that drops the power to 1/2 to prevent LEDs from frying if the fan gets stuck... Don't forget it's GE - no eBay/Alibaba cheapo lamp. But OK - we can call it "failure" because of the bad performance since that point.

CMH lamps can reach same or better efficacy than this LED lamp

The 4000K version of this lamp gives off 4,800 lm while Osram POWERBALL HCI-T Excellence 4,200 lm only. Both in 35W.

If the luminaire is very old, what is its condition ? If the luminaire is deteriorated it makes more sense to replace it to a brand new luminaire, than to hack into it any lamp that will still give poor performance because of the lumianire

The price for the new luminaire could be like 10-times more compared to this lamp. That's why.

The fan will get clogged in no time in an open luminaire, mainly by insects flying to the ligth. Might survive better in an enclosed one (it will eventually getter all the dust inside, no more dust untill the luminaire is opened again)

I don't think the power of the fan would be enough to suck the existing dust in the lantern into the lamp - it's no 1,600W hoover to move it from a distance longer than a millimeter or two. The problem is with small cracks, covers bent by sun, wind, previous relampings and so on. This is a retrofit to MV (=old) fixtures and a good half of them already have midges inside.

The current through the ballast will be lower than usual, so the losses in it quite low even if it is left in. Order of couple Watts. Actually, HID ballast efficacy is not that bad even with their original lamp - For Mercury lamp it really is the lamp and not the ballast that is the limiting factor anyway

This is to replace an 80W or 125W lamp and the 125W gets pretty hot. That's why some kinds of ballasts have been banned. I agree upon the limited current, hence a few watts only. Actually +5W would cause the original efficacy of 137 lm/W drop down to 120 lm/W only.

The non omnidirectional LED designs usually dont have all that good optics either, see some of the monstrosities out there. New HID lumianire (or even non new one, but modern design and well maintained) will outperform both retrofit and non retrofit LED lighting devices

Yeah, true LED lanterns are glaring but give off all of their light downwards and sidewards. This lamp will be half glaring, half wasting the power to the dirty reflector.

Te amount of light that will be lost due to the lamp size (reflected from the luminaire's reflector back to the lamp, emitted directly out at wide angle, ..) is on the same order of magnitude or higher than the 600 Lm difference

In addition, when glare is present we are blinded, and even worse so when the glare is all in the peak sensitivity of the eye, so we see less of the useful light



New luminaire is not all that expensive

Right now i have a Gaash Mars 70W SON-E /I, that i bought brand new for ~90 Euro + lamp for ~8 Euro. And that is the price for me buying one unit. For higher efficacy add an ignitor (few Euros) and use 70W SON-T lamp (the reflector in those is ok for both SON-E and SON-T)

I dont expect a high end LED lamp (and not Chinese joke) to cost 10 times less. And here when lamp burns out it is a 8 Euro lamp to replace



Some dust will probably be allways in the air inside the luminaire (convection streams picking up the lightest particles, ..) and if it is not sealed well, there is ofcourse fresh supply from outside

Many Mercury luminaires date to the late 80s/90s/early 00s, and many of those have quite good ingress protection, typically IP44 or IP54. Little dust gets in those if any



The 100W+ HID ballasts are typically ~0.9..0.92 efficient, as Magnetics generally are efficient in big packages. So not that much losses even with the intended 125W lamp. It was banned for being a Mercury ballast and not for being inefficient. Use a 100W SON ballast instead, which is allowed and electrically nearly the same anyway

from datasheet: "• Use in enclosed fixtures only." so, no insects!

@marcopete87: The statement "Use in enclosed fixture only", applied only to MH lamps, and this is because they can explode at EOL, presenting a safety hazard if the arctube isn't protected by a quartz shield, and not because of insects. Both MV and HPS lamps, can be safetly operated on open fixtures.

hard to tell what leds that has.
there are fans that will last 40k but are more costly.
on the good side at least it has a decent thermal design but is dependent on that fan lasting.
and bugs do get into most lights despite gaskets.every cobrahead i have opened was full of them.
so even if they dont jam the fan they may pack the heatsink fins and cause overheating.

@marcopete87: The statement "Use in enclosed fixture only", applied only to MH lamps, and this is because they can explode at EOL, presenting a safety hazard if the arctube isn't protected by a quartz shield, and not because of insects. Both MV and HPS lamps, can be safetly operated on open fixtures.

Dor, they are referring to the LED lamp, not a metal halide, I don't think the LED lamp can explode.
In the future, please make sure you are referring to the right lamp before posting.

I didn't found reason for this LED lamp to be used in enclosed fixture only, as this statement usually used with MH lamps and not with LED lamps which can't explode like MH lamps.
But after reading your comment, I got the conclusion, that the statement for this LED lamp, is because of its internal fan, which can get locked, when the lamp operated exposed.

and bugs do get into most lights despite gaskets.every cobrahead i have opened was full of them.

This is exactly what I meant. Not only cobraheads but many other old fixtures can be easily penetrated by bugs. And this is not intended for new (modern HPS/MH lanterns with good sealing) but a retrofit to old MV fixtures.
As a conclusion - nice try from the GE but the lamp isn't very suitable as a retrofit to old MV street lanterns because it can't survive there because of bugs.

As a conclusion - nice try from the GE but the lamp isn't very suitable as a retrofit to old MV street lanterns because it can't survive there because of bugs.

A possible solution is to have bug repellent devices/bug zappers around to get rid of the bugs. The problem with that is that you aren't saving energy anymore.

Bug repellants and zappers dont use all that much energy. Also, zapped bugs can clog the fan as efficiently as alive ones

You won't achieve any energy efficiency with that by adding a small fan because that will increase the need for more power, hence the bulb will be just a fancy new fangled retrofit

Otherwise just stick to mercury or get a HPS retrofit bulb