Various technological advancements over the recent years have led to the development of innovative products in several industries, particularly the lighting industry. This makes LED lighting one of the most popular lighting innovations, which are currently used for construction projects in residential, commercial, and industrial establishments. Actually, LED lighting represents the most recent innovation in the lighting industry. By lowering the cost of electricity and overall energy use, the energy efficiency and long lifespan of LED technology hold the potential to change how businesses light up their facilities.
LED stands for light emitting diode. It is a semiconductor device that produces light using the electroluminescence process. With this, visible light is produced when a semiconductor material is exposed to an electric current. As a result, a photovoltaic cell—the type of cell used in solar panels to turn visible light into electricity—stands in stark contrast to an LED.
Actually, LED lighting has been around for a while and has been getting better over time. LED technology helped put an astronaut on the moon and made portable AM radios possible by advancing the development of solid-state transistors. Furthermore, in fact, third-generation LEDs are presently being used by manufacturers. The most recent generation outperforms all other lighting sources in terms of longevity, toughness, performance, and energy efficiency. LEDs are now used in numerous industrial, commercial, and residential buildings for a variety of purposes.
LED lighting has a lot to offer, particularly for industrial and commercial companies looking to cut expenses and energy usage. Additionally, newer, more efficient LEDs are always being created because present LEDs are already a technological breakthrough over other lighting technologies. As more and more new homes, structures, and refurbished spaces transition to LED lighting in recent years, LED lights have grown in popularity.
Energy Efficient
One of the leading LED lighting advantages is their energy-efficient operation. Useful lumens, which evaluate the amount of light a device outputs for every watt it consumes, are a common way to assess a lighting source’s energy efficiency. In the past, light was measured in terms of lumens, but in actuality, some of these lumens are wasted. Compared to other lighting technologies, LED lighting generates more usable lumens and less wasted light.
LEDs typically have relatively low power requirements. Luminous efficacy or usable lumens are the two phrases used to describe the statistics that should be considered when evaluating the energy efficiency of various lighting solutions. These two quantities essentially express how much light the bulb emits for every watt it uses. This means that switching to LEDs for all of the lighting in your workplace, school, or other institution could increase your overall energy efficiency by as much as 60% to 70%. Depending on the type of lighting you replace and the type of LED lights you use, the improvement could reach 90% in some instances.
All these being said, saving money is directly tied to these increases in energy efficiency. Your energy consumption will drastically decrease when you switch to an LED light source, making LED lighting a wise investment for any company’s bottom line.
Longer Lifespan
The lifespan of an LED lighting is far longer than that of the typical incandescent bulb. An incandescent light bulb typically lasts a thousand hours. A typical LED light has a 50,000-hour lifespan. Its lifespan could reach 100,000 hours, depending on how you use it. This indicates that you can use an LED light for somewhere between six and twelve years before replacing it. This outlasts an incandescent light by 40 times.
Furthermore, an LED light will survive at least two to four times longer than fluorescent, metal halide, or sodium vapor lights. Savings, therefore, include both replacement and maintenance expenditures on your company’s lighting bill. No matter the precise number, this longevity is excellent for your wallet because light bulbs are expensive, and if you’ve previously calculated how many you use in your home or place of business, you’ll have a general notion of how much it will cost to replace them when they eventually burn out.
Low Risk of Burns
LEDs are currently the most energy-efficient source of lighting, with a lighting efficiency between 80 and 90 percent less energy than conventional lighting sources like incandescent, fluorescent, metal halide, and mercury lamps. This indicates that while 20% of the energy is lost or changed to heat, 80% of the energy input is turned to light.
Actually, only 5 to 10 percent of the energy used by a conventional incandescent lamp is converted into light. Due to the amount of energy that incandescent lights convert to heat as a byproduct of producing light, if you were to touch one while it was on or after it had been on for a while, you would probably suffer a terrible burn. But with LED lighting, you would be less likely to experience this.
However, beware of a few exceptions. There are some tiny but potent LED lamps available today. And only a small portion of their cooling surface can be used to offer heat loss due to their design. Consequently, despite LED technology, these bulbs can get quite hot and shouldn’t be touched while in use.
Durability
Though durability may appear insignificant compared to other benefits of LEDs, it actually saves a lot of money and waste. A filament in a conventional bulb is a brittle wire that generates light as a byproduct of heat when turned on, whereas an LED is built of compound semiconductor materials, which emit light when the electrical current runs through them. This makes LEDs very durable.
Additionally, LED bulbs can be made in versions that can endure being dropped, the cold, vibrations, and water resistance. They are also easily produced in versions that can withstand being exposed to these conditions. For ceiling lights that are fixed permanently, durability may not be as important. However, this is a significant benefit with all moving lights, outdoor lights, including flashlights and torches.
Lastly, LEDs are resilient to shattering and are largely resistant to vibrations and other shocks because they lack filaments or glass surrounds. The exterior of traditional lighting is typically made of glass or quartz, both of which are prone to breakage. LEDs, however, do not often utilize any glass. Instead, they are mounted on a circuit board and connected by soldered leads, which can be vulnerable to direct impact, although not much more so than mobile phones and other comparable compact electrical gadgets.
Design Flexibility
Because of how small LEDs are, they are suitable for usage in a wide range of applications. Keep in mind that they were designed to be indication lights for circuit boards. They form a classic bulb when you group them together. A line or series of LED lights can be made by connecting several of them, much like a string of Christmas lights.
Additionally, LEDs offer an excellent color rendering index, or CRI. In comparison to an ideal light source, such as natural light, the CRI measures how well a light can show the true color of objects. Although it obviously depends on the needed application, high CRI is often a desirable quality. The CRI ratings for LEDs are typically very high as well. The simplest method to understand CRI may be to compare traditional lighting sources like sodium vapor lamps, which often have low CRI values and are sometimes nearly monochromatic, to LED illumination, which has a high CRI.
Key Takeaway
If you want higher energy efficiency, simpler maintenance, or better environmental performance from your lighting equipment, it is time to opt for LED lighting. Although they are more expensive than those of the traditional lighting sources, LED lights are becoming more affordable every year. Even if you have to spend a little bit more up front, the money you will save in the long run will more than make up for it. Especially given the fact that one of the most significant advancements in recent decades for lowering energy prices and consumption has been the creation of LED lighting.
