With the imminent phase out of incandescent light bulbs completely by 2012, many home-owners and businesses are now on the look out for alternative options. A recent study entitled “ Energy Efficient Lighting for Commercial Markets” by Pike Research has found that around 17.5% of electricity consumption globally is a result of lighting [1]. This has resulted in an increased interest in energy efficiency, and consequently Light Emitting Diode (LED) bulbs over the more common Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs). CFLs were until recently expected to be the alternative and more eco-efficient option to incandescent bulbs, however it appears that may only have been a passing stage as LEDs are acknowledged to provide a better quality of light and a greater efficiency, which as a result saves you more money [2].
How They Work
LEDs are not just limited to one bulb as they have been previously on items such as DVD players and televisions, but can now be clustered and encased to diffuse the light around the room. EarthEasy [3] estimates that they use only 2–10 Watts of electricity, which is approximately 1/30 of the energy used by incandescents or 1/3 of the energy used by CFLs. LEDs are considered to last up to 10 times longer than CFLs and produce only 4% of the heat, which may save you money on air conditioning. Other benefits include the better durability of the bulbs as they do not have a filament and the absence of mercury, which is used in CFLs making them hard to dispose of. Furthermore, they can be used in remote areas with low power supplies so the use of solar panels is more viable. Therefore, although LEDs cost more to initially purchase, the amount of energy used is only a fraction of that used by other bulbs and they last a long time.
How They Help You Save
At Home:
Cheap LED lights from DIY stores have a bad reputation for emitting cold and weak light, however there a lot of specialist firms which provide good quality, super-bright bulbs for a small fraction of the wattage required for conventional bulbs [4]. For example, it is possible to replace a 50 watt halogen downlighter with an LED version that uses only 3 watts – an energy saving of 94% which will decrease your energy bills. You may think that replacing a 60 watt bedside lamp for a 1 watt LED bulb will make you room darker, however super-bright bulbs emit the same light as conventional bulbs, just more efficiently.
Manufacturers are also experimenting with organic LEDs which are flat surfaces of light that can be embedded in plastics and other materials to produce illuminated curtains, wallpapers and mirrors which allow for more creative designs, specialist effects and colour changing. Using this technology, ranges of LED lights for the home have been developed to include tabletop lamps, coloured spots and fruit bowls.
In Business:
LED lighting can offer more benefits to the food retail industry when installed in shop refrigerators as the 90% energy efficiency reduces heat emissions and saves on refrigeration costs. Replacing 200 halogen ceiling spot lights can save over £5700 a year, as the same level of lighting can be reached using only 1.4kWh as opposed to the 10kWh required by traditional methods [5]. Installing just 10 LED floodlights for business car parks could save £33,000 and 63 tonnes of carbon over 25 years. The lights would also last up to 10 times longer (around 150,000 hours) and improve resolution on CCTV images [6].
In the street:
The Climate Group has announced a global trial of LED street lights in Adelaide, Hong Kong, Kolkota, London, Mumbai, New York, Tianjin and Toronto [6]. LED lights are bright enough for street light systems and Whittington in Staffordshire has become one of the first places in the UK where LED lights are used instead of sodium lights. This uses 70% less energy and produces a brighter light than the traditional methods. LA in the US has already begun to replace all of its municipal lighting with LEDS and this is considered to have contributed to a 40% reduction in its annual energy consumption for public lighting [2].
The future
The Pike Research [1] study suggests that a growing number of construction projects will start to use LED lighting and that by 2020, 46% of all illumination in the commercial and industrial sector will use LED technology and consequently reduce energy consumption. It has been calculated that if all lights at our homes and places of work were replaced with LEDs, the share of UK electricity used for lighting would drop from 20% to 5% and the 8 new planned power stations would not be required.
The introduction of new EU legislation stipulates that manufacturers may only make scientifically based claims for their lights, for example, an energy efficient bulb that claims to be the equivalent of a 60 watt incandescent bulb must have a minimum light output of 8-6 luminous flux. This should persuade people that LED lights do not emit less light than traditional bulbs or take longer to “warm up”. With recent research highlighting possibilities of producing LED lamps more efficiently, super-bright LEDs should be much more easily available and cheaper.
Overall, LED lights are estimated to last for 100,000 hours of light so should only need replacing every 60 years. This combined with the low wattage required to power them, makes LED lights the most cost efficient and energy efficient lighting option available. They also have the added bonus of not containing mercury and having the ability to dim them; unlike CFLs.
The most important thing to remember is that if there is not a suitable LED lighting option available for you now, there will be in the near future as the technology is constantly improving.
[1] http://www.pikeresearch.com/research/energy-efficient-lighting-for-commercial-markets
[3] http://eartheasy.com/live_energyeff_lighting.htm
[4] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/3294503/The-futures-bright.html
[5] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/greenproperty/7873021/Green-property-energy-efficient-bulbs.html
[6] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/04/eon-lights-led-streetlamps
