garage lighting question

My shop has 8' ceilings and is 20' x 24' (yes, I know it's small!). I'm using 6 flourecent flood lights on the ceiling and each draws only 17 watts but is rated at 75 watts of light output. That adds up to the power of one 102 watt bulb. I also have one 4' dual bulb flourcent fixture over my work bench for detail work that pulls 80w on a seperate switch. This set up is very energy efficeint and I could probably run it off a set of solar panels, a 300 watt inverter and a good set of batteries. The bad thing is that the floods take a while to fire up in cold weather, but I can live with that for the price. Also, the lights have been in for three years with no replacements yet.

My friends have commented how bright it is and I feel that I have plenty of light to do anything except paint and body. As someone mentioned, I have drywalled and painted the interior white and I think that made a huge difference. I have a big *** hallogen 1200 watt light set on a stand that I use for body work.

I would think that you could install 23 of these floods, get great light coverage and it would use less juice than just one of the metal halides. Just food for thought.