Top 10 Benefits of Using LED Lights Instead of Conventional Lighting

Top 10 Benefits of Using LED Lights Instead of Conventional Lighting

You certainly hear and read a lot about the advantages and benefits of the energy efficiency of LED light emitting diodes vs traditional lighting. When you compare them to other energy-saving illumination methods that are available on the market today, you will find that LED lighting is by far the most power-saving and smart solution. Recent research and developments in the field of LED illumination is about to bring upon us an intelligent green LED lighting revolution that will help us save the planet. Join us now and become a part of it!

By far the most energy efficient, the cleanest and most eco-friendly way of illumination is LED lighting, which is basically digital light and comes with a multitude of amazing benefits.

In fact, in makes a big leap in technology that can been seen much as an upgrade from analog to digital. LED is digital light, and the advantages versus conventional ‘analog’ lighting are so huge and of major


1. Long Life
Long life time stands out as the number one benefit of LED lights. LED bulbs and diodes have an outstanding operational life time expectation of up to 100.000 hours. This is 11 years of continuous operation, or 22 years of 50% operation. If you leave on the LED fixture for 8h per day it would take around 20 years before you’d have to replace the LED bulb.
LED’s are different to standard lighting: They don’t really burn out and stop working like a standard light, moreover the lighting diodes emit lower output levels over a very long period of time and become less bright.


2. Energy Efficiency
Todays most efficient way of illumination and lighting, with an estimated energy efficiency of 80%-90% when compared to traditional lighting and conventional light bulbs. This means that about 80% of the electrical energy is converted to light, while a ca. 20% is lost and converted into other forms of energy such as heat.

With traditional incandescent light bulbs who operate at 20% energy efficiency only, a 80% of the electricity is lost as heat. Imagine the following scenario:

If you use traditional lighting and have an electricity bill of e.g US$ 100, then US$ 80 of that money has been used to heat the room, not to light it! Using LED illumination with 80% efficiency, the electricity costs would be around US$ 20 and you’d have saved around US$ 80.

The long operational life time acts as a multiplicator and helps achieve even more energy efficiency, especially large scale and when thinking in terms of urban infrastructure projects, such as cities, railroads and airports.

Think of e.g an airport using energy efficient LED lighting exclusively and achieving a 30% power consumption reduction in comparison with an airport using conventional lighting technology.

Because the long life span of LED lights, also the maintenance work - think of all the work and energy it would take to purchase, stock and change the conventional light bulbs of an airport - you’ll see that you can make significant energy savings also when it comes to maintenance and replacement due to the long operational life times of LED lighting.


3. Ecologically Friendly
LED lights are free of toxic chemicals. Most conventional fluorescent lighting bulbs contain a multitude of materials like e.g mercury that are dangerous for the environment.

LED lights contain no toxic materials and are 100% recyclable, and will help you to reduce your carbon footprint by up to a third. The long operational life time span mentioned above means also that one LED light bulb can save material and production of 25 incandescent light bulbs. A big step towards a greener future!


4. Durable Quality
LEDs are extremely durable and built with sturdy components that are highly rugged and can withstand even the roughest conditions.

Because LED lights are resistant to shock, vibrations and external impacts, they make great outdoor lighting systems for rough conditions and exposure to weather, wind, rain or even external vandalism, traffic related public exposure and construction or manufacturing sites.


5. Zero UV Emissions
LED illumination produces little infrared light and close to no UV emissions.

Because of this, LED lighting is highly suitable not only for goods and materials that are sensitive to heat due to the benefit of little radiated heat emission, but also for illumination of UV sensitive objects or materials such a in museums, art galleries, archeological sites etc.


6. Design Flexibility
LEDs can be combined in any shape to produce highly efficient illumination. Individual LEDs can be dimmed, resulting in a dynamic control of light, color and distribution. Well-designed LED illumination systems can achieve fantastic lighting effects, not only for the eye but also for the mood and the mind:

LED mood illumination is already being used in airplanes, classrooms and many more locations and we can expect to see a lot more LED mood illumination in our daily lives within the next few years.


7. Operational in Extremely Cold or Hot Temperatures
LED are ideal for operation under cold and low outdoor temperature settings. For fluorescent lamps, low temperatures may affect operation and present a challenge, but LED illumination operates well also in cold settings, such as for outdoor winter settings, freezer rooms etc.


8. Light Dispersement
LED is designed to focus its light and can be directed to a specific location without the use of an external reflector, achieving a higher application efficiency than conventional lighting. Well-designed LED illumination systems are able to deliver light more efficiently to the desired location.


9. Instant Lighting & Frequent Switching
LED lights brighten up immediately and when powered on, which has great advantages for infrastructure projects such as e.g traffic and signal lights.

Also, LED lights can switched off and on frequently and without affecting the LED’s lifetime or light emission. In contrast, traditional lighting may take several seconds to reach full brightness, and frequent on/off switching does drastically reduce operational life expectancy.

10. Low-Voltage
A low-voltage power supply is sufficient for LED illumination. This makes it easy to use LED lighting also in outdoor settings, by connecting an external solar-energy source and is a big advantage when it comes to using LED technology in remote or rural areas.

Did these top 10 benefits of LED lighting convince you? LED lighting has even more benefits and advantages, so make sure you go LED and save both the planet - and your money!

The Future of LEDs

The Future of LEDs

LEDs continue to get brighter, more efficient and cheaper. Some predict a 2 or 3 times improvement in efficiency and brightness before the decade is over with significant price decreases. Whether these predictions are true or not remains to be seen, but what is certain is that millions of dollars are being invested in this technology every year ensuring a bright future for LED technology.

The future of household lighting will soon be the wide spread adoption and use of white energy efficient LED light bulbs. Though the present market for finished white LED products is geared mainly towards enthusiasts and early-adopters, the efficiency and cost effectiveness of LED lighting systems will drive demand for more affordable LED lights. Opto-electronics is an exciting area and we predict, that in the near future, white LED lighting applications will be powerful and cheap enough to replace incandescent lighting for everyday use in our homes, in street lights, outdoor signs, and offices.
Advantages of LED Lights

The operational life of current white LED lamps is 100,000 hours. This is 11 years of continuous operation, or 22 years of 50% operation. The long operational life of an led lamp is a stark contrast to the average life of an incandescent bulb, which is approximately 5000 hours. If the lighting device needs to be embedded into a very inaccessible place, using LEDs would virtually eliminate the need for routine bulb replacement. 

There is no comparison between the cost of LED lights vs. traditional incandescent options. With incandescent bulbs, the true cost of the bulb is the cost of replacement bulbs and the labor expense and time needed to replace them. These are significant factors, especially where there are a large number of installed bulbs. For office buildings and skyscrapers, maintenance costs to replace bulbs can be enormous. These issues can all be virtually eliminated with the LED option. 

The key strength of LED lighting is reduced power consumption. When designed properly, an LED circuit will approach 80% efficiency, which means 80% of the electrical energy is converted to light energy. The remaining 20% is lost as heat energy. Compare that with incandescent bulbs which operate at about 20% efficiency (80% of the electrical energy is lost as heat). In real money terms, if a 100 Watt incandescent bulb is used for 1 year, with an electrical cost of 10 cents/kilowatt hour, $88 will be spent on electricity costs. Of the $88 expense, $70 will have been used to heat the room, not light the room. If an 80% efficient LED system had been used, the electricity cost would be $23 per year - there would be a cost savings of $65 on electricity during the year. Realistically the cost savings would be higher as most incandescent light bulbs blow out within a year and require replacements whereas LED light bulbs can be used easily for a decade without burning out. 

Our white LED lights currently come in packages which contain 36 or 48 LED lamps and can be adapted for use with any power supply or casing. Our clusters allow for conversion to operate from all common caving batteries, e.g. FX5/Kirby pack down to two AA cells, in case portability is needed. We have produced a seven-LED cluster light source as an alternative to low wattage light bulbs and a possible portable light source. 

The main limitation to the adoption of white LED lighting as a lighting standard is the current high cost of led bulbs. Although the cost keeps going down, LED light bulbs are still expensive. A single AC bulb (17 LED), replacing a 25 watt incandescent, will cost about $40. Although LED's are expensive, the cost is recouped over time and in energy cost savings. Factor in that it is significantly cheaper to maintain led lights, the best value comes from commercial use where maintenance and replacement costs are expensive. Traffic lights and outdoor signs, for example, are being switched over to LED's in many cities. Smaller arrays, such as those in flashlights, headlamps and small task lights are great for specialty and outdoor use. LED based automotive headlights are current being used in high end luxury cars.

It will be interesting to see what developments are coming for more residential applications of LED lights. LED lighting technology has been researched and developed for the past two decades and we are beginning to see practical applications from this work. There is already wide spread use of LED traffic signs and LED headlights where a premium is placed on a reliable light source that is cheaper and less labor intensive to maintain. We in the industry are certain that tomorrows LED lights will last longer and consume even less power than todays energy efficient led light bulbs. LED lighting will be used to replace virtually every type of light, bulb, and lamp that is currently in use.