Sunday 5 February 2012

LED Lighting - The Energy Saving Home Lighting

By Mark Penn


Have you noticed the lights around America changing from yellow to blue? Light Emitting Diodes (or LEDs) are here to stay and spreading across the products we use more every day. Apart from your basic bulb, LEDs are used to build energy-efficient lighting in other products such as auto head lights, TV and cell phone touch screens. More prominent in the month of December, LED lights make a loud statement and can be discovered wrapped around lamp posts, brightening up your Yuletide Tree or lining the outside of your house. These decorative lights may produce a brilliant, clean and cooler look but they are a bit more pricier than our good old-fashioned yellow-tinted twinklers. They're pretty but just as important, are they worth the money? What are they doing for our developing world?

According to Consumer Reports, LEDs have become better than when they first hit the market. Earlier issues have been overcome and LED Lighting is currently available in a variety of differing formats to meet the needs of the purchaser. LED lights can be employed in common places where lights are used for extended amounts of time like restaurants, parking lots, street lights and, naturally, your own residence. They turn on and reach full brightness instantly, even in extreme cold and are untouched by the continuous turning off and on, making them an attractive choice for home owners who require quality lighting.

A lot of the energy released from incandescent bulbs turns into heat rather than light, which is the main reason why you never want to touch a regular bulb with bare hands! This also causes the life of the bulb to weaken with each use and displays a dimmer light in comparison with both CFLs (compact fluorescent lights) and LEDs. While CFLs use much less energy than incandescent bulbs, LEDs don't emit as much heat as either. With its particular design, the LED can take 70%-80% of that heat energy and convert it to be used to power the light.

The U.S. Department of Energy believes that by 2025, LEDs will be much more wide spread and end up saving the U. S. over $280 billion dollars because they're going to have managed to avoid the development of about 133 new energy generating plants. It'll fundamentally get rid of up to 258 metric tons of carbon emissions. It's also assumed that we will be able to reduce demands for electricity from lighting alone by over half at 62%! From changing bulbs to installing solar energy panels, energy saving choices are spreading, permitting the consumer to have more control over their own private power usage.

The most popular bulbs (sold in 2011) are the '60-watt equivalent' versions of LEDs and CFLs. It is true that CFLs are a smarter choice than ordinary bulbs because they are lower in price, have low amounts of mercury and do, in reality require less energy. Nonetheless LEDs will last longer and will save you anywhere from $65 to $400 over the life span of the bulb. With the lifespan reaching almost 50 times longer than incandescent, the LED will finally far exceed the money-saving mark over a period of time. Energy.com states, "Recent industry roadmapping indicates costs for warm white LED packages have fallen by half, from roughly $36 to $18 per thousand lumens (kilolumens, or klm) from 2009 to 2010. Costs are anticipated to decline noticeably, to approximately $2/klm by 2015."

Whether you are lighting the tree, watching television, attempting to save money in the long term or trying to reduce your carbon footprint, LEDs are a good choice for everybody, everywhere. From the most basic warm white light LEDs to the luminescent flood light protecting the front walk; this kind of lighting and its reducing price range are making them more accessible to the masses. Just do not forget to consider the use, lamp replacement, lumens and upkeep costs of the life of any bulb before buying. Switching your bulbs from incandescent to LEDs is a small step to a growing bigger picture.




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