Perhaps one of the best developments in lighting in recent years has been the advent of better and cheaper LED light bulbs. LEDs differ from traditional incandescent light bulbs in that they don’t use a filament that easily breaks to create the light, they semiconductors that emit photons. The result is a more eco-friendly, longer lasting light bulb that out performs even the compact fluorescent bulbs that green power advocates are pushing today
The traditional Edison-styled light bulbs rely on using electricity to light up a filament until it glows. This is really an inefficient way of generating light. By using brute force to light up the room, a whole lot of energy is lost due to heat. In fact, much of the energy used by incandescent bulbs is released as heat, not light. LEDs on the other hand, use semiconductors that a fine tuned to release photons. Because of this, they only use 13 Watts, compared to the 20 Watts that incandescent bulbs use. This means that they are close to forty percent more efficient than standard light bulbs! Not only this, LEDs last at least twenty-five percent longer than incandescent bubs, so not only do you save on electricity, you also save on buying new bulbs.
Since LEDs were first invented in the 1960s, they have progressed at an amazing rate, doubling in brightness every eighteen to twenty-four months. Currently, the most high-tech LEDs produce around one hundred lumens per watt, while incandescent bulbs produce fifteen and compact florescent bulbs produce eighty.
All of this combines to make LED garden lighting a very attractive alternative for your home. LEDs have improved in quality to the point where many of them now actually release better light than compact florescent bulbs do and they last almost five times longer. Their application has also proved a boon for solar lighting fixtures, which are now more viable than ever because the LEDs in them burn brighter and with less energy than ever before.
For more information on lights and lighting fixtures, visit the Garden Lights Guru.
