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Home Home and Family Home The Latest Generation Of Energy Efficient Bulbs
The Latest Generation Of Energy Efficient Bulbs PDF Print E-mail
Written by Siobhan Ostrowski   
Conventional incandescent light bulbs, which includes halogen bulbs, turn barely more than ten percent of their energy input into visible light. They function by heating a metal filament to almost melting point and most of the input electricity is, as you might expect, dissipated in the form of heat. It would therefore be something of an understatement to describe them as not exactly efficient at doing the very thing they are supposed to do
by SiobhanOstrowski


Traditional incandescent light bulbs, which includes halogen bulbs, turn barely more than ten percent of their energy input into visible light. They function by heating a metal filament to almost melting point and most of the input electricity is, as you might expect, dissipated in the form of heat. It would therefore be something of an understatement to describe them as not exactly efficient at doing the very thing they are supposed to do

If you wanted a diminutive heater then conventional light bulbs are quite effective, though of course the heat they generate is usually wasted someplace unhelpful like the ceiling and much of the time all they achieve is making the air conditioning work harder. The simple truth is that you are shelling out good money for heat you don't want and getting very little actual light in return.

Much more efficient (so called "energy saving" or "low energy") light bulbs have been around now for quite a few years. These have invariably taken the form of compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) which are still the most common type of energy saving bulb available to domestic consumers. CFLs have proved to be less than wildly popular, mainly because they're oversized, take a considerable amount of time to get to optimum brightness and are comparatively expensive. Despite some improvements to make CFLs more discrete, attain optimumbrightness in less time, and reduce the price but there is no hiding the fact that they have a tarnished image, which is not helped by the fact that they also contain poisonous mercury vapour and are thus not easy to dispose of in an environmentally friendly way.

The next breed of energy saving lighting uses the technology of light emitting diodes (LED). LED light is vastly more energy efficient than today's CFLs but until quite recently has not been sufficiently up to the levels needed for normal home lighting.

However LED bulbs recently appearing in the market are indeed available as genuine alternatives, and in particular the ones intended as substitutes for GU10 and MR16 halogen lamps. But anyone contemplating trying this road should also know that many white LED bulbs, and in particular ones described as "cool" as distinct from "warm" white) may appear slightly blue which some folk find fairly attractive but which generally do tend to stick out rather if mixed with other kinds of lighting.

Undoubtedly though, the biggest benefit of LED light bulbs is their ability to they convert ninety percent of the energy consumed directly into light while wasting virtually none of that precious energy as heat which means that they need a whole lot less energy to operate them. Around ten times less which in terms of cost savings is massive for the simple reason that the cost of electric lighting is nearly all about the running cost. The cost of the light bulbs themselves is simply trivial by comparison.

LED lights also last about twenty times longer so need replacing much less frequently. The advantages are obvious then; not only does LED lighting save you the consumer money, they also help the environment. The manufacturing process is simpler than for CFL and there are no unpleasant disposal issues.

But the principle environmental impact is down to the fact that because they use less electricity then less electricity has to be produced which in turn means reduced CO2 emissions.

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If you would like to learn more then read this article about 12 volt LED bulbs.

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