Ethical Global Business Resources

There are several good reasons to consider installing low energy light bulbs, chief among them being that you can save serious sums of money, you can help to reduce global warming and, thanks to legislation banning incandescent light bulbs, you don’t really have a choice.

So what are your choices when it comes to low energy lighting? In two words, not much, and in two more words CFL and LED (Compact Fluorescent Lamp and Light Emitting Diode respectively).

Out of these two, CFL’s have been available for much longer yet in terms of efficiency they are only about 4 times better than incandescents plus they have a long list of murky issues with regards to aesthetics, health and safety, usability and environmental concerns.

In contrast, LED’s for general domestic use have only appeared quite recently yet in terms of efficiency they are already 10 times better and still improving at an astonishing rate; they also present no particular concerns either.

The obvious question here is: if LED’s are so far ahead of both incandescent and CFL light bulbs then why don’t more people install them? There are a number of reasons but let’s look at the two principal ones.

The first of which is that most folk have a perception that LED’s are for toys and decorative lights, not serious domestic lighting. This is mainly because viable LED alternatives to mainstream light bulbs haven’t been around long and are still not so easy to find.

The second reason for the slow adoption of LED’s to date is lack of widespread understanding of the economics of electrical lighting and the tendency for people to pay attention to what appears most immediate and neglect what’s actually going on.

That’s why we grumble when opening the latest electricity bill and balk when confronted with the cost of LED light bulbs in the hardware store; all the while totally missing the connection. A sizable proportion of the average electricity bill is due to the cost of lighting – it’s not the cost of the light bulbs that matters, it’s how much it costs to run them.

Those “inexpensive” regular light bulbs convert less than one tenth of the electricity supplied to them (and paid for by you) into light – all the rest is lost as heat. Now let’s look at those rather pricey LED bulbs again – the convert over nine tenths of electricity into light and waste very little as heat.

It’s possible to break even on the initial investment in high priced LED light bulbs in little more than a year and since they outlast conventional light bulbs by a factor of 25:1 (50,000+ hours versus 2,000 hours) you can also factor in reduced replacement costs too. Maybe these expensive LED’s are actually cheaper when you work it all out.

So what should you look for when checking out low energy light bulbs? Foremost is quality; there are many cheap LED’s on the market and they’re not worth a candle (well maybe a few, but that’s all).

It’s common to find that cheap LED’s provide very little information or guidance, where by contrast good quality ones are up front about the specifications they claim to match; for example 50 degree light beam angle, warm white colour and brightness equivalent to 35w.

The other main point to get used to is that LED’s are intrinsically very directional and thus compete very well with most conventional spotlights. LED light bulbs that provide all round illumination are available but they are much less common than the spot light formats, which are already becoming very popular as replacements for MR16 halogen spots.

Note that although MR16 is a specification for the size and construction of spot light reflectors (the bit you see and that shines) it has become almost synonymous with 12 volt low voltage systems that use the GU5.3 two pin base; it also in fact covers mains voltage lamps that use instead the GU10 twist/lock system. But whichever you choose to consider, both 12v LED and GU10 LED light bulbs provide an ideal entry point to the world of ultra low energy lighting.

There are several good reasons to consider installing low energy light bulbs, chief among them being that you can save serious sums of money, you can help to reduce global warming and, thanks to legislation banning incandescent light bulbs, you don’t really have a choice.

So what’s on offer in the low energy lighting stall? Well when it comes down to it, there’s CFL’s (Compact Fluorescent Lamps) and LED’s (Light Emitting Diodes) and that pretty much covers it.

CFL’s have been around for a while now, however they deliver only about a 4 times improvement on efficiency over incandescent bulbs and they bring a lot of nasty baggage in terms of aesthetic qualities (or lack thereof), usability, health and environmental risks.

In contrast, LED’s for general domestic use have only appeared quite recently yet in terms of efficiency they are already 10 times better and still improving at an astonishing rate; they also present no particular concerns either.

So if LED’s are way better than either incandescent light bulbs or CFL’s then why aren’t more people installing them? There are several reasons but we’ll look at just the main two.

The first is that many people still associate LED’s with their past as Xmas lighting and battery torches and simply don’t regard them as viable domestic lighting. This is in large part due to the fact that high quality domestic LED light bulbs are still very new and still not widely available.

The second reason for the slow adoption of LED’s to date is lack of widespread understanding of the economics of electrical lighting and the tendency for people to pay attention to what appears most immediate and neglect what’s actually going on.

So we open the electricity bill and grumble then in the DIY or lighting store wince at the price of LED light bulbs. And in so doing completely the miss the point. A significant portion of most electricity bills is accounted for by lighting, and the cost of lighting has little to do with the cost of light bulbs – it’s almost entirely the running cost.

Those “cheap” incandescent light bulbs convert less than 10% of the electricity into light; the rest of the electricity (and the money you paid for it) is wasted as heat. Compare that to an “expensive” LED light bulb that converts over 90% of the electricity into light.

You can hit break-even on the investment cost of apparently expensive LED bulbs in about a year and from there on just keep raking in the savings. Most LED’s last 50,000+ hours compared to 2,000 hours for incandescent lights, so that’s 25 times less replacement cost too. Perhaps high price, high quality LED’s are actually the cheaper option after all.

So what should you look for when checking out low energy light bulbs? Foremost is quality; there are many cheap LED’s on the market and they’re not worth a candle (well maybe a few, but that’s all).

In general you can spot a high quality LED bulb by the fact that it will state what sort of incandescent light bulb it aims to replace; so if you want to replace a 35 watt, 50 degree beam, warm white halogen lamp then check that the LED you’re considering is a good match for all 3 features (luminosity, light spread and color).

The second most important thing to take on board is that the light from an LED is by nature extremely directional and therefore highly suitable for spot lighting. Which is not to say that there aren’t good all round light LED’s available, just that spot light applications are where LED’s have a natural advantage and have accordingly become highly popular with folk wanting to replace hot and inefficient MR15 format halogen spot lamps.

As a side note, the term MR16 has become closely associated with low voltage (12v) lighting but it actually describes both the GU5.3 base format with two pins used for 12v systems and the GU10 twist n’ lock format used for main voltage lighting. In either case though, both 12v MR16 and its GU10 mains variant are an excellent way to get started right this minute with genuine energy saving lighting.