LED lights are now seen as the wise option for savvy consumers seeking a long life, energy smart, environmentally friendly, stylish and compact alternative to conventional incandescent, halogen or fluorescent or halogen lighting. LEDs are available in a astounding range of shapes, sizes, colors, designs and capacities for home or office. They are available as tubes, strips, downlights or bulbs.
LEDs do have a high purchase price. That makes it seem as if they are expensive. But their purchase price is more than recovered by a lower electricity bill for many years into the future because of the higher efficiency and longer operating life of LEDs. These benefits more than pay for their higher upfront cost.
Take bulbs for example. An LED bulb has a life up to about 50 times longer. LEDs have an operational life of a massive 50,000 hours, sometimes longer. By comparison, incandescent bulbs have a life of only a few thousand hours. Additionally, LEDs generate virtually no heat, are manufactured without any hazardous materials, are environmentally clean to dispose, produce a comfortable and consistent light without any harmful ultra violet (UV) radiation. They are available with either standard screw or bayonet bases at power levels up to about 3 watts.
The installation process on a 12V DC system is a little more involved. A magnetic transformer must also be installed. This transformer is inexpensive. Importantly, electronic transformers (switch mode power supplies) cannot be used with LED downlights.
Compared to bulbs, LED downlights are generally produced to a higher capacity. They are available at up to around 10 watts per unit. Units powered by an alternating current are supplied with a built-in transformer making them a cinch to install compared to halogen lights which require a separate transformer.
Based on the above conservative estimates, a 100 watt incandescent globe generates 1,500 lumens. By comparison, an LED would require only about 21 watts to generate 1,500 lumens.
Some people argue that compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) are a superior choice to LED lights on efficiency grounds. This is debatable. CFLs are more efficient that conventional fluorescent lights but it is not at all clear that they are more efficient than LEDs. Estimates suggest that a 21 watt LED unit produces the same lumens as a 100 watt incandescent bulb. By comparison, the energy required by a CFL unit is slightly higher; it takes a 26 watt CFL unit to produce the same lumens as a 100 watt incandescent bulb. Whatever the case on efficiency, CFLs are definitely an inferior environmental choice since they contain mercury, a highly dangerous neuro-toxin. It is very difficult to recycle CFLs safely.
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