A flick of a switch at home can set a handful of light bulbs aglow. City streets are illuminated by overhead lights, stores brightly advertise their presence through light. Lighting accounts for twenty percent of all energy use in Europe.
All this light, however, comes at a cost; producing the electricity creates pollution from power plants and greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing energy needs from lighting even just by half could save billions and help wean us off our dependence on oil.
Our current lighting systems are tremendously inefficient; incandescent bulbs waste 95 per cent of the energy flowing through them as heat. Fluorescent bulbs are more efficient, but their harsh colour has prevented them from fully penetrating the lighting market.
High quality LEDs are extremely rugged, long-lasting and ten times more energy efficient than incandescent lights. In addition, they remain at room temperature, which can cut down energy use even further by reducing air-conditioning that today offsets heat from conventional lights sources.
Lots of money is yearly invested by several inventive universities and semiconductor manufacturers in the development of even more efficient technologies and incandescent light bulb replacement LEDs.
Our generation of people have been born in a world that was mainly illuminated by incandescent bulbs. Our eyes and brains have been conditioned by this agreeable and warm light source and it is not easy to replace them with alternatives as fluorescent tubes of other sources as LEDs. Incandescent sends out a wide spectrum of colors and our eyes (perception) always try to compare these reflected colors with sunlight.
Light generated by a LED has only one problem: LEDs generate a Monochromic light. In other words, only one frequency, or a very narrow spectrum of light is generated by the LED.
White LED’s are general divided in 3 groups: Cold White, Natural White and Warm White.
Some manufacturers have developed white light that is very tasteful and is coming close to what our eye and brains expect to see.
Our children and definitely our grandchildren won’t be able to compare incandescent with LED light anymore because incandescent light will probably no longer exist.
Advantages of LED illumination
- Long life: high quality LEDs last up to 50.000 hours.
- Low maintenance: due to very low replacement cycle.
- Energy efficient: save up to 87% over conventional lighting systems.
- Low heat dissipation: ideal for refrigeration lighting applications.
- Ideal frequency: 460-660NM higher yields in produce growth applications.
- No stroboscopic effect: no headache or fatigue symptoms.
- No start up time: instant on/off.
- Rugged: high shock & temperature resistance.
- Instant recognition: constant & brilliant light source.
- Environment friendly: low energy consumption, no harmful materials/gases.
- Food friendly: Led lamps produce no UV or infrared. Ideal to illuminate food.
- Good colour rendering: White led light is getting better and better in color rendering due to continuous research on new and better phosphors.
- Customizing light color: By mixing white and colored LEDs, special colors can be made to illuminate meat or vegetables or plants or …
- Higher and higher power: The power of LEDs is increasing exponentially. Applications as road, parking or sports-field lighting is possible with the actual leds.
No way back: since September 2009, incandescent bulbs >75W are forbidden in Europe, in 2012, all incandescent bulbs will be forbidden in Europe. Halogen lamps consume a lot of power for a short lifetime, compact fluorescent lamps give a rather cool light and only 6000 hours lifetime.
