LED Lighting
Illuminating the world has proven to be a strain on our environmental and financial resources. The traditional source of domestic lighting is the incandescent blub and although the introduction of this blub was a revolution, it was also terribly inefficient. Only between 5-8% of the energy used to power an incandescent blub actually provides light. The rest is wasted heat. Anyone who has ever touched an incandescent after it has been active for a while will testify to how hot they can become.
LED lights waste a minimal amount of heat. They also contain no mercury making them much better for the environment. LED lighting also wastes no energy turning on or off, because they light up immediately. What is very exciting about LED lighting is the amount of time the blub will last for. An incandescent will last for roughly 1,200 hours where as an LED light will last for an impressive 60,000.
The battle of the bulb
Some people are put off by the higher cost of LED lighting. It is true that the initial investment is significantly higher, but over a period of time, the LED will pay for itself tenfold. Let's take a typical household with an average of 30 bulbs and set the clock to 60,000 hours: the typical lifespan of all LED lighting.
In those 60,000 hours you will have to replace an incandescent bulb 50 times. 50 incandescent lights compared to 1 LED. So if we take the average incandescent as being worth $1.25, 60,000 hours will cost $62.50 in bulbs, where as one LED light will cost approximately $15.98.
LED lighting will also use far less electricity than the incandescent. Over 60,000 hours the LED will use 360 kWh where as the incandescent will use 3,600 kWh. In financial terms, just one incandescent will cost $720 where as an LED will cost $72.00 (based on a cost of $0.20 per kWh).
Adding together all of these figures tells us that powering a house with 30 incandescent bulbs for 60,000 hours will cost you $23,475 and powering the same house with LED lighting will cost you $2,639.40: a saving of $20,835.
What does the future hold for LED lighting?
There is an exciting future ahead for LED lighting. LED use semiconductors made from growing Gallium nitride on sapphire or silicon carbide. This has always been an expensive process, hence the higher initial investment compared to incandescent lights.
But now, the Gallium nitride has been successfully developed to grow in silicon. This is still in the test phase and we have no definitive date on the release of the new light. But growing Gallium nitride on pure silicon will greatly lower the price of the LED in the initial investment stage. Making LED lighting an affordable and long-lasting source of light. The future looks bright for the LED.
