Top 10 Benefits of LED Lighting

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! 

Basic advantages of LED Light

1. Energy efficient - LED’s are now capable of outputting 135 lumens/watt
2. Long Lifetime - 50,000 hours or more if properly engineered
3. Rugged - LED’s are also called “Solid State Lighting (SSL) as they are made of solid material with no filament or tube or bulb to break
4. No warm-up period - LED’s light instantly – in nanoseconds
5. Not affected by cold temperatures - LED’s “like” low temperatures and will startup even in subzero weather
6. Directional - With LED’s you can direct the light where you want it, thus no light is wasted
7. Excellent Color Rendering - LED’s do not wash out colors like other light sources such as fluorescents, making them perfect for displays and retail applications
8. Environmentally friendly - LED’s contain no mercury or other hazardous substances
9. Controllable - LED’s can be controlled for brightness and color

Why LED's are chosen for many applications

• LEDs are ideal for use in applications that are subject to frequent on-off cycling, unlike fluorescent lamps that burn out more quickly when cycled frequently, or HID lamps that require a long time before restarting.
• LEDs can very easily be dimmed or strobed
• LEDs light up very quickly. A typical red indicator LED will achieve full brightness in microseconds.
• LEDs mostly fail by dimming over time, rather than the abrupt burn-out of incandescent bulbs
• LEDs, being solid state components, are difficult to damage with external shock, unlike fluorescent and incandescent bulbs which are fragile.
• LEDs can be very small and are easily populated onto printed circuit boards.
• LEDs do not contain mercury, unlike compact fluorescent lamps

Disadvantages and challenges in using LEDs

• LEDs are currently more expensive, price per lumen, on an initial capital cost basis, than more conventional lighting technologies. However, when considering the total cost of ownership (including energy and maintenance costs), LEDs far surpass incandescent or halogen sources and begin to threaten compact fluorescent lamps.
• The Chart Below compares different light sources based upon the life of the bulb and the electrical cost at 10 cents per kWh (kilowatt hour). Note: fixture costs and installation costs are not included.

• LED performance largely depends on correctly engineering the fixture to manage the heat generated by the LED, which causes deterioration of the LED chip itself. Over-driving the LED or not engineering the product to manage heat in high ambient temperatures may result in overheating of the LED package, eventually leading to device failure. Adequate heat-sinking is required to maintain long life. The most common design of a heat sink is a metal device with many fins, which conducts the heat away from the LED. For more information on this, refer to the Thermal Management tab.
• LEDs must be supplied with the correct voltage and current at a constant flow. This requires some electronics expertise to design the electronic drivers.
• LED’s can shift color due to age and temperature.  Also two different white LED will have two different color characteristics, which affect how the light is perceived.