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What are the Advantages of using LED Lighting?
Conventional incandescent and fluorescent lighting has been around for many years. LED lighting is relatively new as a commercial product, yet has many advantages. It is little wonder that the use of LED lighting is now becoming so widespread around the world. Some of the more significant advantages of LED lighting are described below.
Safety
There are a number of documented cases of Halogen lighting having provided the ignition source for fires. It is estimated that halogen lights are the ignition source for around 40 house fires per year in Melbourne alone.
This shouldn’t be surprising as the surface temperature of a halogen globe can reach 370 deg C, by comparison, LED lights will become warm to the touch, but not hot enough to cause ignition.
Many conventional forms of lighting use materials that have been unchanged over decades, and include highly toxic elements such as mercury. LED lighting does not contain such materials, making them far safer for use and eventual disposal.
Maintenance Costs.
After a few hundred hours of use, incandescent globes become dim and start to fail, and fluorescent lights often start to flicker. Quality LED lighting has a typical expected lifespan in excess of 50,000 hours. In an office setting, this is equivalent to running the lighting for 10 hours a day, 5 days a week for 20 years. At home, each light could easily last up to 30 years.
This hugely extended lifespan, when compared to other forms of lighting, means that the LED lights require little or no maintenance during that time. By comparison traditional forms of lighting require regular maintenance to replace globes as they fail. In the commercial world, office maintenance is a high cost of any business. By fitting quality LED lighting, you can reduce your lighting maintenance costs to virtually zero.
The cost of a quality LED light may be more than the cost of an incandescent globe, but the LED light is far cheaper over the course of 2 or more years.
Electrical maintenance work, including the changing of incandescent globes that have failed, always introduces some risk. So by using LED lights that typically have a lifespan in excess of 50,000 hours (25 years of normal use) you can eliminate hazards associated with working on stepladders, or around electrical equipment. In a commercial or office environment, the cost of such maintenance can be very significant, so the dollar savings associated with LED lighting are more than just the costs of the globes and the power usage.
Lower power consumption
LED lighting saves between 75% and 85% of power when compared to incandescent lighting (for the same light intensity) and saves approx. 50% of power when compared to compact fluorescent equivalents. The power saving largely comes from a more efficient conversion of electricity to light energy. Incandescent lighting is dependent upon heat to produce light, and so much of the energy is wasted.
When used indoor, the true inefficiencies of traditional lighting becomes even more apparent. On hot days, the heat created by the incandescent lights exacerbates the problems with keeping a room cool. Air conditioning units need to be run to combat the additional heat associated with the lighting, therefore incurring further cost. LED Lighting which has been implemented in traffic lights as an example*, has already saved over 900 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, This is not only highly beneficial for our environment but also saves taxpayers money by reducing the power costs of these 24 / 7 lights.
While LED Lighting can in some cases require a slightly higher initial financial investment. Like all good investments they're guaranteed to save you time in changing light globes and money over the long lifetime of the LED Light, and the payback period can be as low as 4 months at Aussie LED Lighting pricing.
Around 50% power savings if replacing CFL’s (KWh)
Around 74% power savings if replacing traditional Incandescent lights (KWh)
Even more savings can be taken into account, if you add the reduced cost of air conditioning power that is saved by the lower operating temperatures of LED Lighting.
LED’s can produce specific colours of light.
LEDs are very well known for their ability to produce light waves at very specific colour frequency ranges. This makes the colours produced by LEDs the most vivid of all light forms, as a precise frequency of light output can be selected instead of using coloured lens or filters which also decrease the efficiency and intensity of the light output source.
Long Lifespan.
If powered and cooled correctly LED's have already lasted up to 50 years*. This makes LED Lighting ideal for any hard to access applications and areas where changing a light globe or fitting is difficult.
With the ongoing developments in LED technology and the design of LED lighting is been continually improved this is increasing the efficiency, reliability and lifespan of LED lighting is also constantly been improved and extended.
LED’s do not contain mercury and other hazardous substances.
Unlike fluorescent lamps - This means that manufacturing and eventual recycling of LED products has a much lower environmental impact, and associated costs, making our lives safer by reducing the level of toxins present in our everyday lives.
No Ultra violet / Infra red Emissions.
LED’s produce no UV and do not radiate heat in the form of IR, and only a small percentage of heat in comparison to traditional lighting, making LED Lighting ideal for illuminating objects, such as works of art, that are sensitive to UV or IR light, in museums and art galleries etc.
Higher CRI values.
